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Division     "^T^  0 
Section       ,  i\  V  ^ 


Zbc  Semitic  Scries 


DEVELOPMENT   OF 

MUSLIM   THEOLOGY,   JURISPRUDENCE 
AND   CONSTITUTIONAL  THEORY 

By  DUNCAN  B.  MACDONALD,  M.A.,  B.D. 


SERIES  OF  HAND-BOOKS  IN  SEMITICS 

EDITED   BY 

JAMES  ALEXANDER  CRAIG 

PROFESSOR  OF  SEMITIC  LANGUAGES  AND  LITERATURES  AND 
HELLENISTIC  GREEK  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  MICHIGAN 

Recent  scientific  research  has  stimulated  an  increasing  in- 
terest in  Semitic  studies  among  scholars,  students,  and  the 
serious  reading  public  generally.  It  has  provided  us  with  a 
picture  of  a  hitherto  unknown  civilization,  and  a  history  of 
one  of  the  great  branches  of  the  human  family. 

The  object  of  the  present  Series  is  to  state  its  results  in 
popularly  scientific  form.  Each  work  is  complete  in  itself,  and 
the  Series,  taken  as  a  whole,  neglects  no  phase  of  the  general 
subject.  Each  contributor  is  a  specialist  in  the  subject  as- 
signed him,  and  has  been  chosen  from  the  body  of  eminent 
Semitic  scholars  in  Europe  and   in  this  country. 

This  Series  will  be  composed  of  the  following  volumes : 

I.  Hebrews.    History   and    Government.    By  Professor 
J.  F.  McCurdy,  University  of  Toronto,  Canada. 

II.  Hebrews.    Ethics  and  Religion.     By  Professor  Archi- 
bald Duff,  Airedale  College,  Bradford,  England. 

\Now  Ready. 

III.  Hebrews.     The  Social    Life.      By  the   Rev.   Edward 

Day,  Springfield,  Mass.  \_Now  Ready. 

IV.  Babylonians  and  Assyrians,  with  introductory  chap- 

ter on  the  Sumerians.     History  to  the  Fall  of  Baby- 
lon.   By  Dr.  Hugo  Winckler,  University  of  Berlin. 

[/«  Press. 

V.  Babylonians  and  Assyria  ns.    Religion.     By  Professor 
J.  A.  Craig,  University  of  Michigan. 

VI.  Babylonwcns  and  Assyrians.  Life  and  Customs.  By 
Professor  A.  H.  Sayce,  University  of  Oxford,  Etigland, 

\_Now  Ready, 

VII.  Babylonians  and    Assyrians.     Excavations  and  Ac- 
count of  Decipherment  of  Inscriptions. 

VIII.  Syria  and  Palestine.     Early  History.    By  Professor 
Lewis  Bayles  Paton,  Hartfordf  Theological  Seminary. 

\_Now  Ready. 

IX.  Development  of  Muslim  Theology,  Jurisprudence 
and  Constitutional  Theory.  By  Professor  D.  B. 
Macdonald,  Hartford  Theological  Seminary. 

\^Now  Ready. 

The  following  volumes  are  to  be  included  in  the  Series, 
and  others  may  be  added  : 

X.  Phcenicia.       History     and    Government^     including 
Colonies,  Trade,  and  Religion. 

XI.  Arabia,  Discoveries  in.,  and  History  and  Religion 
until  Muhammad. 

XII.  Arabic  Literature  and  Science  since  Muhammad. 

XIII.  The  Influence  of  Semitic  Art  and  Mythology  on 
Western  Nations. 


Xlbe  Semttfc  Series 


DEVELOPMENT  OF 


Muslim  Theology,  Jurisprudence 
and  Constitutional  Theory 


BY 
t    ^ 

DUNCAN    B.    MACDONALD,   M.A,   B.D. 

SOMETIME    SCHOLAR    AND    FELLOW    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY   OF 

GLASGOW  ;    PROFESSOR    OF    SEMITIC    LANGUAGES    IN 

HARTFORD   THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1903 


Copyright,  1903,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published,     March,    1903 


TROW  DIRECTORY 

PRINTING  AND   BOOKBINDINQ  COMPANV 

NEW   YORK 


MEMORI^ 
MATRIS   SACRVM 


PREFACE 

It  is  with  very  great  diffidence  that  I  send  out  this 
book.  Of  the  lack  and  need  of  some  text-book  of 
the  kind  there  can  be  little  doubt.  From  the  ed- 
ucated man  who  wishes  to  read  with  intelligence  his 
"  Arabian  Nights  "  to  the  student  of  history  or  of 
law  or  of  theology  who  wishes  to  know  how  it  has 
gone  in  such  matters  with  the  great  Muslim  world, 
there  is  demand  enough  and  to  spare.  Still  graver 
is  the  difficulty  for  the  growing  body  of  young  men 
who  are  taking  up  the  study  of  Arabic.  In  English 
or  German  or  French  there  is  no  book  to  which  a 
teacher  may  send  ^his  pupils  for  brief  guidance  on 
the  development  of  these  institutions  ;  on  the  devel- 
opment of  law  there  are  only  scattered  and  fragmen- 
tary papers,  and  on  the  development  of  theology 
there  is  practically  nothing.  But  of  the  difficulty  of 
supplying  this  need  there  can  be  even  less  doubt. 
Goldziher  could  do  it  fully  and  completely  ;  no  other 
Arabist  alive  could  approach  the  task  other  than  with 
trepidation.  The  following  pages  therefore  form  a 
kind  of  forlorn  attempt,  a  rushing  in  on  the  part  of 
one  who  is  sure  he  is  not  an  angel  and  is  in  grave 
doubt  on  the  question  of  folly,  but  who  also  sees  a 
gap  and  no  great  alacrity  on  the  part  of  his  betters 
toward  filling  it.     One  thing,  however,  I  would  pre- 

vii 


VlU  PREFACE 

raise  with  emphasis.  All  the  results  given  here  have 
been  reached  or  verified  from  the  Arabic  sources. 
These  sources  are  seldom  stated  either  in  the  text  or 
in  the  bibliography,  as  the  book  is  intended  to  be 
useful  to  non-Arabists,  but,  throughout,  they  lie  be- 
hind it  and  are  its  basis.  By  this  it  is  not  meant 
that  the  results  of  this  book  are  claimed  as  original. 
Every  Arabist  will  recognize  at  once  from  whose 
wells  I  have  drawn  and  who  have  been  my  mas- 
ters. Among  these  I  would  do  homage  in  the  first  in- 
stance to  Goldziher ;  what  Arabist  is  not  deep  in  his 
debt?  With  Goldziher's  influence  through  books  I 
would  join  the  kindred  influence  of  the  living  voice 
of  my  teacher  Sachau.  To  him  I  render  thanks  and 
reverence  now  for  his  kindly  sympathy  and  guid- 
ance. Others  in  whose  debt  I  am  are  Noldeke, 
Snouck  Hurgronje,  von  Kremer,  Lane — many  more. 
Those  who  are  left  of  these  will  know  their  own  in 
my  pages  and  will  be  merciful  to  my  attempts  to 
tread  in  their  steps  and  to  develop  their  results. 
What  is  my  own,  too,  they  will  know ;  into  questions 
of  priority  I  have  no  desire  to  enter.  Foot-notes 
which  might  have  given  to  each  scholar  his  due  have 
been  left  unwritten.  For  the  readers  of  this  book 
such  references  in  so  vast  a  subject  would  be  use- 
less. Such  references,  too,  would  have  in  the  end  to 
be  made  to  Arabic  sources. 

More  direct  help  I  have  to  acknowledge  on  several 
sides.  To  the  atmosphere  and  scholarly  ideals  of 
Hartford  Seminary  I  am  indebted  for  the  possibility 
of  writing  such  a  book  as  this,  so  far  from  the  ordi- 
nary theological  ruts.  Among  my  colleagues  Professor 


PREFACE  iX 

Gillett  has  especially  aided  me  with  criticism  and 
suggestions  on  the  terminology  of  scholastic  theol- 
ogy. Dr.  Talcott  Williams,  of  Philadelphia,  illumined 
for  me  the  Idrisid  movement  in  North  Africa.  One 
complete  sentence  on  p.  85  I  have  conveyed  from  a 
kindly  notice  in  The  Nation  of  my  inaugural  lecture 
on  the  development  of  Muslim  Jurisprudence.  Fi- 
nally, and  above  all,  I  am  indebted  to  my  wife  for 
much  patient  labor  in  copying  and  for  keen  and  lu- 
minous criticism  in  planning  and  correcting.  With 
thanks  to  her  this  preface  may  fitly  close. 

Duncan  B.  Macdonald. 

Hartford,  December,  1902. 

*^*  As  it  has  proved  impracticable  to  give  in  the  body  of  the 
book  a  full  transliteration  of  names  and  technical  terms,  the 
learner  is  referred  for  such  exact  forms  to  the  chronological  table 
and  the  index.  In  these  hamza  and  ayn,  the  long  vowels  and  the 
emphatic  consonants  are  uniformly  represented,  the  last  by  italic. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Introduction 3 


PART   I 
CONSTITUTIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

CHAPTER  I 
From  Death  of  Muhammad  to  Rise  of  Abbasids      7 

CHAPTER  II 
To  Rise  of  Ayyubids  ....  .34 

CHAPTER  III 
To  Present  Situation        ......    50 


PART   II 
DEVELOPMENT  OF  JURISPRUDENCE 

CHAPTER  I 
To  Close  of  Umayyad  Period         .        .        .        .65 

CHAPTER  II 

To  Present  Situation 91 

xi 


Xll  CONTENTS 

PAKT    III 

DEVELOPMENT  OF  THEOLOGY 


CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 

To  Close  of  Umayyad  Period  .        ,        »        o  119 


CHAPTER  II 

To  Foundation  of  Fatimid  Khalipate  .        .        ^  153 

CHAPTER  III 

To  Triumph  of  Ash'arites  in  East        .        .       .  186  ^ 

CHAPTER  IV 
Al-Ghazzali 215^ 

CHAPTER  V 

To  Ibn  Sab'tn  and  End  op  Muwahhids  .        .        .243 

CHAPTER  VI 
To  Present  Situation 266 


APPENDICES 

I.     Illustrative  Documents  in  Translation     .  291 

II.     Selected  Bibliography    .....  358 

III.     Chronological  Table       .....  368 

INDEX    ....         o         .....  373 


ERRATA 

Page    30,  line  5,  for  al-Mukanna  read  al-Miiqanua. 

86,  1.  19,  for  first  Khalifa  read  second  Khalifa. 
201,  1.  26,  for  tasalsal  read  tasals^tl. 
237,  for  Mansell  read  Mansel. 
267,  1.  30,  for  Haqqari  read  Hakkari. 

299,  1.  10,  for  MusJiriqs  read  Muslwihs, 

300,  1.  4,  for  kalimatan  ash-shahada  read  kalima- 
ta-sh-shahada. 

325,  1.  23,  for  wilidaniya  read  loalidmiiya, 
339,  1.  11,  for  ilitiyaz  read  ilitiyaj. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF 

MUSLIM  THEOLOGY,  JURISPRUDENCE, 
AND   CONSTITUTIONAL  THEORY 


INTRODUCTION 

In  human  progress  unity  and  complexity  are  the 
two  correlatives  forming  together  the  great  paradox. 
Life  is  manifold,  but  it  is  also  one.  So  it  is  seldom 
possible,  and  still  more  seldom  advisable,  to  divide  a 
civilization  into  departments  and  to  attempt  to  trace 
their  separate  developments  ;  life  nowhere  can  be 
cut  in  two  with  a  hatchet.  And  this  is  emphatically 
true  of  the  civilization  of  Islam.  Its  intellectual 
unity,  for  good  and  for  evil,  is  its  outstanding  qual- 
ity. It  may  have  solved  the  problem  of  faith  and 
science,  as  some  hold ;  it  may  have  crushed  all 
thought  which  is  not  of  faith,  as  many  others  hold. 
However  that  may  be,  its  life  and  thought  are  a 
unity. 

So,  also,  with  its  institutions.  It  might  be  possible 
to  trace  the  developments  of  the  European  states  out 
of  the  dying  Roman  Empire,  even  to  watch  the  pat- 
rimony of  the  Church  grow  and  again  vanish,  and 
yet  take  but  little  if  any  account  of  the  Catholic 
theology.  It  might  be  possible  to  deal  adequately 
with  the  growth  of  that  system  of  theology  and  yet 
never  touch  either  the  Roman  or  the  civil  law,  even 
to  leave  out  of  our  view  the  canon  law  itself.  In 
Europe  the  State  may  rule  the  Church,  or  the  Church 
may  rule  the  State  ;  or  they  may  stand  side  by  side 
in  somewhat  dubious  amity,  supposedly  taking  no 

3 


4  INTRODUCTION 

account  each  of  the  other.  But  in  Muslim  countries, 
Church  and  State  are  one  indissolubly,  and  until  the 
very  essence  of  Islam  passes  away,  that  unity  cannot 
be  relaxed.  The  law  of  the  land,  too,  is,  in  theory, 
the  law  of  the  Church.  In  the  earlier  days  at  least, 
canon  and  civil  law  were  one.  Thus  we  can  never 
say  in  Islam,  "he  is  a  great  lawyer ;  he,  a  great 
theologian  ;  he,  a  great  statesman."  One  man  may 
be  all  three,  almost  he  must  be  all  three,  if  he  is  to 
be  any  one.  The  statesman  may  not  practice  theol- 
ogy or  law,  but  his  training,  in  great  part,  will  be 
that  of  a  theologian  and  a  legist.  The  theologian- 
legist  may  not  be  a  man  of  action,  but  he  will  be  a 
court  of  ultimate  appeal  on  the  theory  of  the  state. 
He  will  pass  upon  treaties ;  decide  disputed  succes- 
sions ;  assign  to  each  his  due  rank  and  title.  He  will 
tell  the  Commander  of  the  Faithful  himself  what  he 
may  do  and  what,  by  law,  lies  beyond  his  reach. 

It  was,  then,  under  the  pressure  of  necessity  only 
that  the  following  sketch  of  the  development  of  Mus- 
lim thought  was  divided  into  three  parts.  By  no 
possible  arrangement  did  it  seem  feasible  to  treat 
the  whole  at  once.  Intolerable  confusions  and  unin- 
telligible complications  would,  to  all  appearance,  be 
the  result.  As  the  most  concrete  and  simple  side, 
the  development  of  the  state  is  taken  first.  Second, 
on  account  of  the  shortness  of  the  course  which  it 
ran,  comes  the  development  of  the  legal  ideas  and 
schools.  Third  comes  the  long  and  thrice  compli- 
cated thread  of  theological  thought.  It  is  for  the 
student  to  hold  firmly  in  mind  that  this  division  is 
purely  mechanical  and  for  convenience  only  ;  that  it 


INTRODUCTION  5 

corresponds  to  little  or  notliing  in  the  real  nature  of 
the  case.  This  will  undoubtedly  become  clear  to 
him  as  he  proceeds.  He  will  meet  with  the  same 
names  in  all  three  divisions ;  he  will  meet  with  the 
same  technicalities  and  the  same  scholastic  system. 
A  treatise  on  canon  law  is  certainly  different  from 
one  on  theology,  but  each  touches  the  other  at  in- 
numerable points ;  their  authors  may  easily  be  the 
same  ;  each  will  be  in  great  part  unintelligible  with- 
out the  other.  He  must  then  labor  to  merge  these 
three  sections  again  into  one  another.  His  principal 
helps  in  this,  along  with  diligent  parallel  reading, 
will  be  the  chronological  table  and  the  index.  In 
the  table  he  will  watch  the  succession  of  men  and 
events  grouped  from  all  the  three  sections ;  from  the 
index  he  will  trace  the  activities  of  each  man  in  these 
different  spheres.  The  index,  too,  will  give  him  the 
technical  terms  and  he  will  observe  their  recurrence 
in  historical,  legal,  and  theological  theory.  Further, 
it  will  serve  him  as  a  vocabulary  when  he  comes  to 
read  technical  texts. 

But,  again,  another  warning  is  necessary.  The 
sketch  given  here  is  incomplete,  not  only  in  details 
but  in  the  ground  that  it  covers.  Important  phases 
of  Muslim  law,  theology,  and  state  theory  are  of  neces- 
sity passed  over  entirely.  Thus  Babism  is  not  touched 
at  all  and  the  Shi'ite  theology  and  law  hardly  at  all. 
The  Ibadite  systems  have  the  merest  mention  and 
Turkish  and  Persian  mysticism  are  equally  neglect- 
ed. For  such  weighty  organizations  the  Darwish 
Fraternities  are  most  inadequately  dealt  with,  and 
Muslim  missionary  enterprise  might  well  be  treated 


6  INTRODUCTION 

at  length.  Guidance  on  these  and  other  points  the 
student  will  seek  in  the  bibliography.  It,  too,  makes 
no  pretence  to  completeness  and  consists  of  selected 
titles  only.  But  it  will  serve  at  least  as  an  introduc- 
tion and  clew  to  an  exceedingly  wide  field.  And  it 
may  be  well  to  state  here,  in  so  many  words,  that 
no  work  can  be  done  in  this  field  without  a  reading 
knowledge  of  French  and  German,  and  no  satis- 
factory work  without  some  knowledge  of  Arabic. 

And,  again,  this  sketch  is  incomplete  because  the 
development  of  Islam  is  not  yet  over.  If,  as  some 
say,  the  faith  of  Muhammad  is  a  cul-de-sac,  it  is  cer- 
tainly a  very  long  one ;  off  it  many  courts  and  doors 
open ;  down  it  many  peoples  are  still  wandering. 
It  is  a  faith,  too,  which  brings  us  into  touching  dis- 
tance with  the  great  controversies  of  our  own  day. 
We  see  in  it,  as  in  a  somewhat  distorted  mirror,  the 
history  of  our  own  past.  But  we  do  not  yet  see  its 
end,  even  as  the  end  of  Christianity  is  not  yet  in 
sight.  It  is  for  the  student,  then,  to  remember  that 
Islam  is  a  present  reality  and  the  Muslim  faith  a 
living  organism,  a  knowledge  of  whose  laws  may  be 
of  life  or  death  for  us  who  are  in  another  camp.  For 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  three  antagonistic 
and  militant  civilizations  of  the  world  are  those  of 
Christendom,  Islam,  and  China.  When  these  are 
unified,  or  come  to  a  mutual  understanding,  then,  and 
only  then,  will  the  cause  of  civilization  be  secure. 
To  aid  some  little  to  the  understanding  of  Islam 
among  us  is  the  object  of  this  book. 


PART  I 
Constitutional  a)e\jcIopmmt 


CHAPTEE  I 


The  death  of  Muhammad  and  the  problem  of  the  succession ;  the 
parties ;  families  of  Hashimids,  Umayyads  and  Abbasids ; 
election  of  Abu  Bakr ;  nomination  of  Umar ;  his  constitution ; 
election  of  Uthman;  Umayyads  in  power;  murder  of  Uth- 
man;  origin  of  Shi'ites ;  election  of  Ali ;  civil  war;  Mu'a- 
wiya  first  Uraayyad ;  origin  of  Kharijites ;  their  revolts ; 
Ibadites;  development  of  Shi'ites;  al-Husayn  at  Karbala; 
different  Shi'ite  constitutional  theories ;  doctrine  of  the  hidden 
Imam ;  revolts  against  Umayyads ;  rise  of  Abbasids ;  Umay- 
yads of  Cordova. 

With  the  death  of  Muhammad  at  al-Madina  in  the 

year  11  of   the  Hijra  (a.d.  632),  the    community  of 

Islam  stood  face  to  face  with  three  great  questions. 

Of  the  existence  of  one  they  were  conscious,  at  least 

in  its  immediate  form ;    the  others  lay  still  for  their 

consciousness  in  the  future.     The  necessity  was  upon 

them   to  choose  a  leader  to  take  the  place  of  the 

Prophet  of  God,  and  thus  to  fix  for  all  time  what  was 

to  be  the  nature  of  the  Muslim  state.     Muhammad 

had  appointed  no  Joshua  ;  unlike  Moses  he  had  died 

and   given  no  guidance  as  to  the  man  who   should 

take  up  and  carry  on  his  work.     If  we  can  imagine 

the  people  of  Israel  left  thus  helpless  on  the  other 

7 


8  CONSTITUTIONAL  DEVELOPMENT 

side  of  the  Jordan  with  the  course  of  conquest  that 
they  must  pursue  opening  before  them,  we  shall  have 
a  tolerably  exact  idea  of  the  situation  in  Islam  when 
Muhammad  dropped  the  reins.  Certainly,  the  peo- 
ple of  Islam  had  little  conception  of  what  was  in- 
volved in  the  great  precedent  that  they  were  about  to 
establish,  but,  nevertheless,  there  lies  here,  in  the 
first  elective  council  which  they  called,  the  beginning 
of  all  the  confusions,  rivalries,  and  uncertainties  that 
were  to  limit  and  finally  to  destroy  the  succession  of 
the  Commanders  of  the  Faithful. 

Muhammad  had  ruled  as  an  absolute  monarch — 
a  Prophet  of  God  in  his  own  right.  He  had  no 
son ;  though  had  he  left  such  issue  it  is  not  prob- 
able that  it  would  have  affected  the  direct  result. 
Of  Moses's  son  we  hear  nothing  till  long  after- 
ward, and  then  under  very  suspicious  circumstances. 
The  old  free  spirit  of  the  Arabs  was  too  strong, 
and  as  in  the  Ignorance  (al-jahiliya),  as  they  called 
the  pre-Muslim  age,  the  tribes  had  chosen  from 
time  to  time  their  chiefs,  so  it  was  now  fixed  that 
in  Islam  the  leader  was  to  be  elected  by  the  people. 
But  wherever  there  is  an  election,  there  there  are 
parties  ;  and  this  was  no  exception.  Of  such  par- 
ties we  may  reckon  roughly  four.  There  were  the 
Early  Believers,  who  had  suffered  with  Muhammad 
at  Mecca,  accompanied  him  to  al-Madina  and  had 
fought  at  his  side  through  all  the  Muslim  campaigns. 
These  were  called  Muhajirs,  because  they  had  made 
with  him  the  Hijra  or  migration  to  al-Madina.  Then 
there  was  the  party  of  the  citizens  of  al-Madina,  who 
had  invited  him  to  come  to  them  and  had  promised 


EARLY    PARTIES  9 

him  allegiance.  These  were  called  Ansar  or  Helpers. 
Eventually  we  shall  find  these  two  factions  growing 
together  and  forming  the  one  party  of  the  old  orig- 
inal believers  and  Companions  of  Muhammad  {sahibs, 
i.e.,  all  those  who  came  in  contact  with  the  Prophet 
as  believers  and  who  died  in  Islam),  but  at  the  first 
they  stood  apart  and  there  was  much  jealousy  be- 
tween them.  Then,  in  the  third  place,  there  was  the 
party  of  recent  converts  who  had  only  embraced 
Islam  at  the  latest  moment  when  Mecca  was  capt- 
ured by  Muhammad,  and  no  other  way  of  escape  for 
them  was  open.  They  were  the  aristocratic  party  of 
Mecca  and  had  fought  the  new  faith  to  the  last. 
Thus  they  were  but  indifferent  believers  and  were 
regarded  by  the  others  with  more  than  suspicion. 
Their  principal  family  was  descended  from  a  certain 
Umayya,  and  was  therefore  called  Umayyad.  There 
will  be  much  about  this  family  in  the  sequel.  Then, 
fourth,  there  was  growing  up  a  party  that  might  be 
best  described  as  legitimists  ;  their  theory  was  that 
the  leadership  belonged  to  the  leader,  not  because  he 
was  elected  to  it  by  the  Muslim  community,  but  be- 
cause it  was  his  right.  He  was  appointed  to  it  by 
God  as  completely  as  Muhammad  had  been.  This 
idea  developed,  it  is  true,  somewhat  later,  but  it  de- 
veloped very  rapidly.  The  times  were  such  as  to 
force  it  on. 

These,  then,  were  the  parties  of  which  account 
must  be  taken,  but  before  proceeding  to  individuals 
in  these  parties,  it  will  be  well  to  fix  some  genea- 
logical relationships,  so  as  to  be  able  to  trace  the 
family  and  tribal  jealousies  and  intrigues  that  were 


10  CONSTITUTIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

SO  soon  to  transfer  themselves  from  the  little  circle  of 
Mecca  and  al-Madina  and  to  fight  themselves  out  on 
the  broad  field  of  Muslim  history.  For,  in  truth, 
in  the  development  of  no  other  state  have  little  causes 
produced  such  great  effects  as  here.  For  example,  it 
may  be  said,  broadly  and  yet  truly,  that  the  seclu- 
sion of  Muslim  women,  with  all  its  disastrous  effects 
at  the  present  day  for  a  population  of  two  hundred 
millions,  runs  back  to  the  fact  that  A'isha,  the  four- 
teen-year-old wife  of  Muhammad,  once  lost  a  neck- 
lace under  what  the  gossips  of  the  time  thought  were 
suspicious  circumstances.  As  to  the  point  now  in 
hand,  it  is  quite  certain  that  Muslim  history  for  sev- 
eral hundred  years  was  conditioned  and  motived  by 
the  quarrels  of  Meccan  families.  The  accompanying 
genealogy  will  give  the  necessary  starting-point. 
The  mythical  ancestor  is  Quraysh  ;  hence  "  the  Qur- 
aysh,"  or  "  Quraysh  "  as  a  name  for  the  tribe.  With- 
in the  tribe,  the  two  most  important  families  are 
those  of  Hashim  and  Umayya  ;  their  rivalries  for  the 
succession  of  the  Prophet  fill  the  first  century  and  a 
half  of  Muslim  history,  and  the  immediately  pre- 
Islamic  history  of  Mecca  is  similarly  filled  with  a 
contest  between  them  as  to  the  guardianship  of  the 
Ka'ba  and  the  care  of  the  pilgrims  to  that  sanctuary. 
Whether  this  earlier  history  is  real,  or  a  reflection 
from  the  later  Muslim  times,  we  need  not  here  con- 
sider. The  next  important  division  is  that  between 
the  families  of  al- Abbas  and  Abu  Talib,  the  uncles 
of  the  Prophet.  From  the  one  were  descended  the 
Abbasids,  as  whose  heir-at-law  the  Saltan  of  the 
Ottoman  Empire  now  claims  the  Khalifate,  and  from 


GENEALOGICAL   CHART 


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ABU   BAKR  I   UMAR  13 


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the  other  the  different  conflicting  lines  of  Shi'ites, 
whose  intricacies  we  shall  soon  have  to  face. 

To  return :  in  this  first  elective  council  the  choice 
fell  upon  Abu  Bakr.  He  was  a  man  distinguished 
by  his  piety  and  his  affection  for  and  close  intimacy 
with  Muhammad.  He  was  the  father  of  Muhammad's 
favorite  wife,  A'isha,  and  was  some  two  years  young- 
er than  his  son-in-law.  He  was,  also,  one  of  the 
earliest  believers  and  it  is  evident  that  this,  with  his 
advanced  age,  always  respected  in  Arabia,  went  far 
to  secure  his  election.  Yet  his  election  did  not  pass 
off  without  a  struggle  in  which  the  elements  that 
later  came  to  absolute  schism  and  revolution  are 
plainly  visible.  The  scene,  as  it  can  be  put  together 
from  Arabic  historians,  is  curiously  suggestive  of  the 
methods  of  modern  politics.  As  soon  as  it  was  as- 
sured that  the  Prophet,  the  hand  which  had  held 
together  all  those  clashing  interests,  was  really  dead, 
a  convention  was  called  of  the  leaders  of  the  people. 
There  the  strife  ran  so  high  between  the  Ansar,  the 
Muhajirs  and  the  Muslim  aristocrats  of  the  house  of 
Umayya,  that  they  almost  came  to  blows.  Suddenly 
in  the  tumult,  Umar,  a  man  of  character  and  decision, 
"  rushed  the  convention  "  by  solemnly  giving  to  Abu 
Bakr  the  hand-grasp  of  fealty.  The  accomplished 
fact  was  recognized — as  it  has  always  been  in  Islam — 
and  on  the  next  day  the  general  mass  of  the  people 
swore  allegiance  to  the  first  Khalifa,  literally  Succes- 
sor, of  Muhammad. 

On  his  death,  in  a.h.  13  (a.d.  634),  there  followed 
Umar.  His  election  passed  off  quietly.  He  had 
been  nominated  by  Abu  Bakr  and  nothing  remained 


14  CONSTITUTIONAL  DEVELOPMENT 

but  for  the  people  to  confirm  that  nomination. 
There  thus  entered  a  second  principle — or  rather 
precedent — beside  that  of  simple  election.  A  cer- 
tain right  was  recognized  in  the  Khalifa  to  nomi- 
nate his  successor,  provided  he  chose  one  suitable 
and  eligible  in  other  respects.  Unlike  Cromwell  in 
a  similar  case,  Abu  Bakr  did  not  nominate  one  of 
his  own  sons,  but  the  man  who  had  been  his  right 
hand  and  who,  he  knew,  could  best  build  up  the 
state.  His  foresight  was  proved  by  the  event,  and 
Umar  proved  the  second  founder  of  Islam  by  his 
genius  as  a  ruler  and  organizer  and  his  self-devotion 
as  a  man.  Through  his  generals,  Damascus  and 
Jerusalem  were  taken,  Persia  crushed  in  the  great 
battles  of  al-Qadisiya  and  Nahawand,  and  Egypt  con- 
quered. He  was  also  the  organizer  of  the  Muslim 
state,  and  it  Avill  be  advisable  to  describe  part  of  his 
system,  both  for  its  own  sake  and  in  order  to  point 
the  contrast  with  that  of  his  successors.  He  saw 
clearly  what  were  the  conditions  under  which  the 
Muslims  must  work,  and  devised  a  plan,  evidently 
based  on  Persian  methods  of  government,  which,  for 
the  time  at  least,  was  perfect  in  its  way. 

The  elements  in  the  problem  were  simple.  There 
was  the  flood  of  Arabs  pouring  out  of  Arabia  and 
bearing  everything  down  in  their  course.  These  must 
be  retained  as  a  conquering  instrument  if  Islam  were 
to  exist.  Thus  they  must  be  prevented  from  settling 
down  on  the  rich  lands  they  had  seized, — from  be- 
coming agriculturists,  merchants,  and  so  on,  and  so 
losing  their  identity  among  other  peoples.  The 
whole  Arab  stock  must  be  preserved  as  a  warrior 


CONSTITUTION    OF   UMAR  16 

caste  to  fight  the  battles  of  God.  This  was  secured 
by  a  regulation  that  no  new  lands  should  be  held  by 
a  Muslim.  When  a  country  was  conquered,  the  land 
was  left  to  its  previous  possessors  with  the  duty  of 
paying  a  high  rent  to  the  Muslim  state  and,  besides, 
of  furnishing  fodder  and  food,  clothing  and  every- 
thing necessary  to  the  Muslim  camp  that  guarded 
them.  These  camps,  or  rather  camp-cities,  were  scat- 
tered over  the  conquered  countries  and  were  practi- 
cally settlements  of  Muslims  m  partibus  infidelium. 
The  duty  of  these  Muslims  was  to  be  soldiers  only. 
They  were  fed  and  clothed  by  the  state,  and  the 
money  paid  into  the  public  treasury,  consisting  of 
plunder  or  rents  of  conquered  lands  (kharaj),  or  the 
head-tax  on  all  non-Muslims  (jizya),  was  regularly 
divided  among  them  and  the  other  believers.  If  a 
non-Muslim  embraced  Islam,  then  he  no  longer  paid 
the  head-tax,  but  the  land  which  he  had  previously 
held  was  divided  among  his  former  co-religionists, 
and  they  became  responsible  to  the  state.  He,  on 
the  other  hand,  received  his  share  of  the  public  mon- 
eys as  regularly  distributed.  Within  Arabia  itself, 
no  non-Muslim  was  permitted  to  live.  It  was  pre- 
served, if  we  may  use  the  expression,  as  a  breeding- 
ground  for  defenders  of  the  faith  and  as  a  sacred  soil 
not  to  be  polluted  by  the  foot  of  an  unbeliever.  It 
will  readily  be  seen  what  the  results  of  such  a  system 
must  have  been.  The  entire  Muslim  people  was  re- 
tained as  a  gigantic  fighting  machine,  and  the  con- 
quered peoples  were  machines  again  to  furnish  it 
with  what  was  needed.  The  system  was  communistic, 
but  in  favor  of  one  special  caste.     The  others — the 


16  CONSTITUTIONAL  DEVELOPMENT 

conquered  peoples — were  crushed  to  the  ground  be- 
neath their  burdens.  Yet  they  could  not  sell  their 
land  and  leave  the  country ;  there  was  no  one  to  buy 
it.  The  Muslims  would  not,  and  their  fellow-co- 
religionists could  not,  for  with  it  went  the  land-tax. 
Such  was,  in  its  essence,  the  constitution  of  Umar, 
forever  famous  in  Muslim  tradition.  It  stood  for  a 
short  time,  and  could  not  have  stood  for  a  long  time ; 
but  the  cause  of  its  overthrow  was  political  and  not 
social-economic.  With  the  next  Khalifa  and  the 
changes  which  came  with  him,  it  went,  in  great  part, 
to  the  ground.  The  choice  of  Umar  to  the  Khalifate 
had  evidently  been  dictated  by  a  consideration  of  his 
position  as  one  of  the  earliest  believers  and  as  son-in- 
law  of  the  Prophet.  The  party  of  Early  Believers  had 
thus  succeeded  twice  in  electing  their  candidate.  But 
with  the  death  of  Umar  in  a.h.  23  (a.d.  644)  the 
Meccan  aristocratic  party  of  the  family  of  Umayya 
that  had  so  long  struggled  against  Muhammad  and 
had  only  accepted  Islam  when  their  cause  was  hope- 
lessly lost,  had  at  last  a  chance.  Umar  left  no  direc- 
tions as  to  his  successor.  He  seems  to  have  felt  no 
certainty  as  to  the  man  best  fitted  to  take  up  the 
burden,  and  when  his  son  sought  to  urge  him  to  name 
a  Khalifa,  he  is  reported  to  have  said,  "  If  I  appoint 
a  Khalifa,  Abu  Bakr  appointed  a  Khalifa ;  and  if  I 
leave  the  people  without  guidance,  so  did  the  Apostle 
of  God."  But  there  is  also  a  story  that  after  a  vain 
attempt  to  persuade  one  of  the  Companions  to  permit 
himself  to  be  nominated,  he  appointed  an  elective 
council  of  six  to  make  the  choice  after  his  death 
under  stringent  conditions,  which  went  all  to  wreck 


UTHMAN 


17 


throagh  the  pressure  of  circumstances.    The  Umay- 
yads  succeeded  in  carrying  the  election  of  Uthman, 
one  of  their  family,  an  old  man  and  also  a  son-in-law 
of  Muhammad,  who  by  rare  luck  for  them  was  an 
Early  Believer.    After  his  election  it  was  soon  evident 
that  he  was  going  to  rule  as  an  Umayyad  and  not 
as  a  Muslim.     For  generations  back  in  Mecca,  as  has 
already  been  said,  there  had  been,  according  to  tradi- 
tion, a  continual  struggle  for  pre-eminence  between 
the  families  of  Umayya  and  of  Hashim.     In  the  vic- 
tory of  Muhammad  and  the  election  of  the  first  two 
Khalifas,  the  house  of  Hashim  had  conquered,  but  it 
had  been  the  constant  labor  of  the  conquerors  to  re- 
move all  tribal  and  family  distinctions  and  frictions 
and  to  bring  the  whole  body  of  the  Arabs  to  regard 
one  another  as  brother  Muslims.     Now,  with  a  Kha- 
lifa of  the  house  of  Umayya,  all  that  was  swept  away, 
and  it  was  evident  that  Uthman — a  pious,  weak  man, 
in  the  hands  of  his  energetic  kinsfolk — was  drifting  to 
a  point  where  the  state  would  not  exist  for  the  Mus- 
lims but  for  the  Umayyads.     His  evil  spirit  was  his 
cousin  Marwan  ibn    al-Hakam,    whom   he  had   ap- 
pointed as  his  secretary  and  who  eventually  became 
fourth  Umayyad  Khalifa.     The  father  of  this  man, 
al-Hakam  ibn  al-As,  accepted  Islam  at  the  last  mo- 
ment when  Mecca  was  captured,  and,  thereafter,  was 
banished  by  Muhammad  for  treachery.     Not  till  the 
reign  of  Uthman  was  he  permitted  to  return,  and  his 
son,  born  after  the  Hijra,  was  the  most  active  assert- 
or  of  Umayyad  claims.     Under  steady  family  press- 
ure, Uthman  removed  the    governors   of   provinces 
who  had  suffered  with  Muhammad  and  fought  in  the 


18  CONSTITUTIOIsrAL   DEVELOPMENT 

Path  of  God  {sahil  Allah),  and  put  in  tlieir  places  nis 
own  relations,  late  embracers  of  tlie  faith.  He  broke 
through  the  Constitution  of  Umar  and  gifted  away 
great  tracts  of  state  lands.  The  feeling  spread  abroad 
that  in  the  eyes  of  tlie  Khalifa  an  Umayyad  could 
do  no  wrong,  and  the  Umayyads  themselves  were  not 
backward  in  affording  examples.  To  the  Muhajirs 
and  Ansar  they  were  godless  heathen,  and  probably 
the  Muhajirs  and  Ansar  were  right.  Finally,  the 
indignation  could  no  longer  be  restrained.  Insurrec- 
tions broke  out  in  the  camp -cities  of  al-Kufa  and  al- 
Basra,  and  in  those  of  Egypt  and  at  last  in  al-Madina 
itself.  There,  in  a.h.  35  (a.d.  655),  Uthman  fell 
under  the  daggers  of  conspirators  led  by  a  Muham- 
mad, a  son  of  Abu  Bakr,  but  a  religious  fanatic 
strangely  different  from  his  father,  and  the  train  was 
laid  for  a  long  civil  war.  In  the  confusion  that  fol- 
lowed the  deed  the  chance  of  the  legitimist  party  had 
come,  and  Ali,  the  cousin  and  son-in-law  of  the 
Prophet,  was  chosen. 

Fortunately  this  is  is  not  a  history  of  Islam,  but  of 
Muslim  political  institutions,  and  it  is,  therefore,  un- 
necessary to  go  into  the  manifold  and  contradictory 
stories  told  of  the  events  of  this  time.  These  have 
evidently  been  carefully  redacted  in  the  interests  of 
later  orthodoxy,  and  to  protect  the  character  of  men 
whose  descendants  later  came  to  power.  The  Alids 
built  up  in  favor  of  Ali  a  highly  ingenious  but  flatly 
fictitious  narrative,  embracing  the  whole  early  his- 
tory and  exhibiting  him  as  the  true  Khalifa  kept 
from  his  rights  by  one  after  the  other  of  the  first 
three,  and  suffering  it  all  with  angelic  patience.     This 


SHI'ITES   AND   SUKNITES  19 

varies  from  the  extreme  Slii'ite  position,  wliicli  damns 
all  the  three  at  a  sweep  as  usurpers,  through  a  more 
moderate  one  which  contents  itself  with  cursing  Umar 
and  Utliman,  to  a  rejection   of  Uthman  only,   and 
even,  at  the  other  extreme,  satisfies  itself  with  anath- 
ematizing  the  later  Umayyads.     At  this  point   the 
Shi'ites  join  hands  with  the  body  of  orthodox  be- 
lievers, who  are  all  sectaries  of  Ali  to  a  certain  de- 
gree.    Yet  this  tendency  has  been   counteracted   to 
some  extent  by  a  strongly  catholic  and  irenic  spirit 
which  manifests  itself  in  Islam.     After  a  controversy 
is  over  and  the  figures  in  it  have  faded  into  the  past, 
Islam  casts  a  still  deeper  veil  over  the  controversy 
itself   and   glorifies   the    actors   on   both  sides  into 
fathers  and  doctors  of  the  Church.     An  attempt  is 
made  to  forget  that  they  had  fought  one  another  so 
bitterly,  and  to  hold  to  the  fact  only  that  they  were 
brother  Muslims.     The   Shi'ites    well   so-called,  for 
SM'a  means  sect,  have  never  accepted  this ;  but  it  is 
the  usage  of  orthodox,  commonly  called  Sunnite,  Is- 
lam.    A  concrete  expression  of  any  result  reached  by 
the  body  of  the  believers  then  often  takes  the  form  of 
a  tradition  assigned  to  Muhammad.     In  this  case,  it 
is  a  saying  of  his  that  ten  men,  specified  by  name 
and  prominent  leaders  in  these  early  squabbles,  were 
certain  of  Paradise.    It  has  further  become  an  article 
in  Muslim  creeds,  that  the  Companions  of  the  Prophet 
are  not  to  be  mentioned  save  with  praise  ;  and  one 
school  of  theologians,  in  their  zeal  for  the  historic 
Khalifate,  even  forbade   the    cursing  of   Yazid,   the 
slayer  of  al-Husa^^n   (p.  28  below),  and  reckoned  as 
the  worst  of  all  the  Umayyads,  because  he  had  been 


20  CONSTITUTIONAL  DEVELOPMENT 

a  Khalifa  in  full  and  regular  standing.  This  catholic 
recognition  of  the  unity  of  Islam  we  shall  meet  again 
and  again. 

Abandoning,  then,  any  attempt  to  trace  the  details 
and  to  adjust  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  this  story,  we 
return  to  the  fixed  fact  of  the  election  of  Ali  and  the 
accession  to  power  of  the  legitimist  party.  This 
legitimist  party,  or  parties,  had  been  gradually  de- 
veloping, and  their  peculiar  and  mutually  discordant 
views  deserve  attention.  These  views  all  glorified 
Ali,  the  full  cousin  of  Muhammad  and  husband  of 
bis  daughter  Fatima,  but  upon  very  different  grounds. 
There  could  not  but  exist  the  feeling  that  a  descend- 
ant of  the  Prophet  should  be  his  successor,  and  the 
children  of  Ali,  al-Hasan  and  al-Husayn  were  his 
only  grandchildren  and  only  surviving  male  descend- 
ants. This,  of  course,  reflected  a  dignity  upon  Ali, 
their  father,  and  gave  him  a  claim  to  the  Khalifate. 
Again,  Ali  himself  seems  to  have  made  a  great  and 
hardly  comprehensible  impression  upon  his  contem- 
poraries. The  proverb  ran  with  the  people,  "There 
is  no  sword  save  Dhu-l-faqar,  and  no  youth  save 
Ali."  He  was  not,  perhaps,  so  great  a  general  as 
one  or  two  others  of  his  time,  but  he  stood  alone  as 
a  warrior  in  single  combat ;  he  was  a  poet  and  an 
orator,  but  no  statesman.  As  one  of  the  earliest  of 
the  Early  Believers,  it  might  be  expected  that  the 
Muhajirs  would  support  him,  and  so  they  did;  but 
the  matter  went  much  farther,  and  he  seems  to  have 
excited  a  feeling  of  personal  attachment  and  devo- 
tion different  from  that  rendered  to  the  preceding 
Khalifas.     Strange  and  mystical  doctrines  were  afloat 


ALI  ;   CIVIL  WAE  21 

as  to  his  claim.  The  idea  of  election  was  thrown 
aside,  and  his  adherents  proclaimed  his  right  by  the 
will  and  appointment  of  God  to  the  successorship  of 
the  Prophet.  As  God  had  appointed  Muhammad  as 
Prophet,  so  He  had  appointed  Ali  as  his  helper  in 
life  and  his  successor  in  death.  This  was  preached 
in  Egypt  as  early  as  the  year  32. 

Tt  will  easily  be  seen  that  with  such  a  following, 
uniting  so  many  elements,  his  election  could  be 
brought  about.  Thus  it  was ;  but  an  evil  suspicion 
rested  upon  him.  Men  thought,  and  probably  right- 
ly, that  he  could  have  saved  the  aged  Uthman  if  he 
had  willed,  and  they  even  went  the  length  of  accus- 
ing him  of  being  art  and  j^art  in  the  murder  itself. 
The  ground  was  hollow  beneath  his  feet.  Further, 
there  were  two  other  old  Companions  of  the  Prophet, 
Talha  and  az-Zubayr,  who  thought  they  had  a  still 
better  claim  to  the  Khalifate  ;  and  they  were  joined 
by  A'isha,  the  favorite  wife  of  Muhammad,  now,  as  a 
finished  intrigante,  the  evil  genius  of  Islam.  Ali 
had  reaped  all  the  advantage  of  the  conspiracy  and 
murder,  and  it  Avas  easy  to  raise  against  him  the  cry 
of  revenge  for  Uthman.  Then  the  civil  war  began. 
In  the  struggle  with  Talha  and  az-Zubayr,  Ali  was 
victorious.  Both  fell  at  the  battle  of  the  Camel 
(a.h.  36),  so  called  from  the  presence  of  A'isha 
mounted  on  a  camel  like  a  chieftainess  of  the  old 
days.  But  a  new  element  was  to  enter.  The  gov- 
ernorship of  Syria  had  been  held  for  a  long  time  by 
Mu'awiya,  an  Umayyad,  and  there  the  Umayyad  in- 
fluence was  supreme.  There,  too,  had  grown  up  a 
spirit  of  religious  indifference,  combined  with  a  pres- 


22  CONSTITUTIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

ervation  of  all  tlie  forms  of   the    faith.     Mu'awiya 
was  a  statesman  by  nature,   and  had  moulded  his 
province  into  an  almost  independent  kingdom.     The 
Syrian  army  was  devoted  to  him,  and  could  be  de- 
pended upon  to  have  no  other  interests  than  his. 
From  the  beginning  of  All's  reign,  he  had  been  bid- 
ing his  time ;  had  not  given  his  allegiance,  but  had 
waited  for  the  hour  to  strike  for  revenge  for  Uthman 
and  power  for  himself.     The  time  came  and  Mu'awi- 
ya  won.     "We  here  pass  over  lightly  a  long  and  con- 
tradictory story.     It  is  enough  to  note  how  the  irony 
of  history  wrought  itself  out,  and  a  son  of  the  Abu 
Sufyan  who  had  done  so  much  to  persecute  and  op- 
pose Muhammad  in  his  early  and  dark  days  and  had 
been  the  last  to  acknowledge  his  mission,  became  his 
successor  and  the  ruler  of  his  people.     But  with  Ali 
ends  the  revered  series  of  the  four  "Khalifas  who 
followed   a  right   course"   {al-kJmlafa  ar-rasMdun\ 
reverenced  now  by  all  orthodox  Muslims,  and  there 
begins  the  division  of  Islam  into  sects,  religious  and 
political — it  comes  to  the  same  thing. 

The  Umayyads  themselves  clearly  recognized  that 
with  their  accession  to  power  a  change  had  come  in 
the  nature  of  theMuslim  state.  Mu'awiya  said  open- 
ly that  he  was  the  first  king  in  Islam,  though  he  re- 
tained and  used  officially  the  title  of  Khalifa  and 
Commander  of  the  Faithful.  Yet  such  a  change 
could  not  be  complete  nor  could  it  carry  with  it  the 
whole  people — that  is  clear  of  itself.  For  more  than 
one  hundred  years  the  house  of  Umayya  held  its 
own.  Syria  was  solid  with  it  and  it  was  supported 
by   many   statesmen   and   soldiers;   but   outside   of 


KHARIJITES  23 

Syria  and  north  Arabia  it  could  count  on  no  part  of 
tlie  po23ulatiou.  An  anti-Khalifa,  Abd  Allah,  son  of 
the  az-Zubayr  of  whom  we  have  already  heard,  long 
held  the  sacred  cities  against  them.  Only  in  a.h.  75 
(a.d.  692)  was  he  killed  after  Mecca  had  been  stormed 
and  taken  by  their  armies.  Southern  Arabia  and 
Mesopotamia,  with  its  camp-cities  al-Kufa  and  al- 
Basra,  Persia  and  Egypt,  were,  from  time  to  time, 
more  or  less  in  revolt.  These  risings  went  in  one  or 
other  of  two  directions.  There  were  two  great  anti- 
Umayyad  sects.  At  one  time  in  Mu'awiya's  contest 
with  Ali,  he  trapped  Ali  into  the  fatal  step  of  arbitrat- 
ing his  claim  to  the  Khalifate.  It  was  fatal,  for  by 
it  Ali  alienated  some  of  his  own  party  and  gained 
less  than  nothing  on  the  other  side.  Part  of  Ali's 
army  seceded  in  protest  and  rebellion,  because  he — 
the  duly  elected  Khalifa — submitted  his  claim  to  any 
shadow  of  doubt.  On  the  other  hand,  they  could 
not  accept  Mu'awiya,  for  him  they  regarded  as  un- 
duly elected  and  a  mere  usurper.  Thus  they  drifted 
and  split  into  innumerable  sub-sects.  They  were 
called  Kharijites — goers  out — because  they  went  out 
from  among  the  other  Muslims,  refused  to  regard 
them  as  Muslims  and  held  themselves  apart.  For 
centuries  they  continued  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  all 
established  authority.  Their  principles  were  abso- 
lutely democratic.  Their  idea  of  the  Khalifate  was 
the  old  one  of  the  time  of  Abu  Bakr  and  Umar. 
The  Khalifa  was  to  be  elected  by  the  whole  Muslim 
community  and  could  be  deposed  again  at  need. 
He  need  be  of  no  special  family  or  tribe ;  he  might 
be  a  slave,  provided  he  was  a  good  Muslim  ruler. 


24  CONSTITUTIOlSrAL  DEVELOPMENT 

Some  admitted  that  a  woman  might  he  Khahfa, 
and  others  denied  the  need  of  any  KhaUfa  at  all ; 
the  Muslim  congregation  could  rule  itself.  Their  re- 
ligious views  were  of  a  similarly  unyielding  and  an- 
tique cast,  but  with  that  we  have  nothing  now  to  do. 
It  cannot  be  doubted  that  these  men  were  the  true 
representatives  of  the  old  Islam.  They  claimed  for 
themselves  the  heirship  to  Abu  Bakr  and  Umar,  and 
their  claim  was  just.  Islam  had  been  secularized ; 
worldly  ambition,  fratricidal  strife,  luxury,  and  sin 
had  destroyed  the  old  bond  of  brotherhood.  So  they 
drew  themselves  apart  and  went  their  own  way,  a 
w^ay  which  their  descendants  still  follow  in  Uman, 
in  east  Africa,  and  in  Algeria.  To  them  the  orthodox 
Muslims — meaning  by  that  the  general  body  of  Mus- 
lims— were  antipathetic  more  than  even  Christians 
or  Jews.  These  were  "  people  of  a  book "  {aid 
hitah),  i.e.,  followers  of  a  revealed  religion,  and  kindly 
treatment  of  them  was  commanded  in  the  Qur'an. 
They  had  never  embraced  Islam,  and  were  to  be 
judged  and  treated  on  their  own  merits.  The  non- 
Kharijite  Muslims,  on  the  other  hand,  were  rene- 
gades {mtirtadds)  and  were  to  be  killed  at  sight.  It 
is  easy  to  understand  to  what  such  a  view  as  this 
led.  Numberless  revolts,  assassinations,  plunderings 
marked  their  history.  Crushed  to  the  ground  again 
and  again,  again  and  again  they  recovered.  They 
were  Arabs  of  the  desert ;  and  the  desert  was  alwaj^s 
there  as  a  refuge.  It  is  probable,  but  as  yet  un- 
proved, that  mingled  with  the  political  reasons  for 
their  existence  as  a  sect  went  tribal  jealousies  and 
frictions ;  of  such  there  have  ever  been  enough  and 


IBADITES  25 

to  spare  in  Arabia.  Naturally,  under  varying  con- 
ditions, their  views  and  attitudes  varied.  In  the 
wild  mountains  of  Khuzistan,  one  of  their  centres 
and  strongholds,  the  primitive  barbarism  of  their 
faith  had  full  sway.  It  drew  its  legitimate  conse- 
quence, lived  out  its  life,  and  vanished  from  the 
scene.  The  more  moderate  section  of  the  Kharijites 
centred  round  al-Basra.  Their  leader  there  was  Abd 
Allah  ibn  Ibad,  and  from  about  the  year  60  on 
the  schism  between  his  followers  and  the  more  abso- 
lute of  these  "  come-outers  "  can  be  traced.  It  is 
characteristic  of  the  latter  that  they  aided  for  a  time 
Abd  Allah  ibn  az-Zubayr  when  he  was  besieged  in 
Mecca  by  the  Umayyads,  but  deserted  him  finally  be- 
cause he  refused  to  join  the  names  of  Talha  and  his 
own  father,  az-Zubayr,  with  those  of  Uthman  and 
Ali  in  a  general  commiuation.  The  Kharijites  were 
all  good  at  cursing,  and  the  later  history  of  this  sec- 
tion of  them  shows  a  process  of  disintegration  by 
successive  secessions,  each  departing  in  protest  and 
cursing  those  left  behind  as  heathen  and  unbelievers. 
Characteristic,  too,  for  the  difference  between  the  two 
sections,  were  their  respective  attitudes  toward  the 
children  of  their  opponents.  The  more  absolute 
party  held  that  the  children  of  unbelievers  were  to 
be  killed  with  their  parents;  the  followers  of  Abd 
Allah  ibn  Ibad,  that  they  were  to  be  allowed  to  grow 
up  and  then  given  their  choice.  Again,  there  was  a 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  standing  of  those  who 
held  with  the  Kharijites  but  remained  at  home  and 
did  not  actually  fight  in  the  Path  of  God.  These 
the  one  party  rejected  and  the  other  accepted.     Again, 


26  CONSTITUTIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

were  the  non-Kliarijites  Muslims  to  the  extent  that 
the  Kharijites  might  live  amongst  them  and  mix  with 
them  ?  This  the  severely  logical  party  denied,  but 
Abd  Allah  ibn  Ibad  affirmed. 

From  this  it  will  be  abundantly  clear  that  the  only 
party  with  a  possible  future  w^as  that  of  Ibn  Ibad. 
His  sect  survives  to  the  present  day  under  the  name  of 
Ibadites.  Very  early  it  spread  to  Uman,  and,  accord- 
ing to  their  traditions,  their  first  Imam,  or  president, 
was  elected  about  a.h.  134.  He  was  of  a  family 
which  had  reigned  there  before  Islam,  and  from  the 
time  of  his  election  on,  the  Ibadites  have  succeeded 
in  holding  Uman  against  the  rest  of  the  Muslim 
world.  Naturally,  the  election  of  the  Imam  by  the 
community  has  turned  into  the  rule  of  a  series  of 
dynasties  ;  but  the  theory  of  election  has  always  held 
fast.  They  were  sailors,  merchants,  and  colonizers 
already  by  the  tenth  century  a.d.,  and  carried  their 
state  with  its  theology  and  law  to  Zanzibar  and  the 
coast  of  East  Africa  generally.  Still  earlier  Ibadite 
fugitives  passed  into  North  Africa,  and  there  they 
still  maintain  the  simplicity  of  their  republican  ideal 
and  their  primitive  theological  and  legal  views. 
Their  home  is  in  the  Mzab  in  the  south  of  Algeria, 
and,  though  as  traders  and  capitalists  they  may  travel 
far,  yet  they  always  return  thither.  Any  mingling 
in  marriage  with  other  Muslims  is  forbidden  them. 

At  the  opposite  extreme  from  these  in  political 
matters  stands  the  sect  that  is  called  the  Shi'a.  It, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  the  name  given  to  the  party  that 
glorifies  Ali  and  his  descendants  and  regards  the  Kha- 
lifate  as  belonging  to  them  by  right  divine.     How 


SHI'ITES  27 

early  this  feeling  arose  we  have  already  seen,  but  the 
extremes  to  which  in  time  the  idea  was  carried,  the 
innumerable  differing  views  that  developed,  the  maze 
of  conspiracies,  tortuous  and  underground  in  their 
methods,  some  in  good  faith  and  some  in  bad,  to 
which  it  gave  rise,  render  the  history  of  the  Shi'a  the 
most  difficult  side  of  a  knowledge  of  the  Muslim 
East.  Yet  some  attempt  at  it  must  be  made.  If 
there  was  ever  a  romance  in  history,  it  is  the  story 
of  the  founding  of  the  Fatimid  dynasty  in  Egypt ;  if 
there  was  ever  the  survival  of  a  petrifaction  in  history, 
it  is  the  survival  to  the  present  day  of  the  Assassins 
and  the  Druses ;  if  there  was  ever  the  persistence  of 
an  idea,  it  is  in  the  present  Shi'ite  government  in 
Persia  and  in  the  faith  in  that  Mahdi  for  whom  the 
whole  world  of  Islam  still  looks  to  appear  and  bring 
in  the  reign  of  justice  and  the  truth  upon  the  earth. 
All  these  have  sprung  from  the  devotion  to  Ali  and 
his  children  on  the  part  of  their  followers  twelve 
centuries  ago. 

In  A..H.  40  (a.d.  660)  Ali  fell  by  the  dagger  of  a 
Kharijite.  These  being  at  the  opposite  pole  from 
the  Shi'ites,  are  the  only  Muslim  sect  that  curses  and 
abhors  Ali,  his  family  and  all  their  works.  Orthodox 
Islam  reveres  Ali  and  accepts  his  Khalifate  ;  his  fam- 
ily it  also  reverences,  but  rejects  their  pretensions. 
The  instinct  of  Islam  is  to  respect  the  accomplished 
fact,  and  so  even  the  Umayyads,  one  and  all,  stand  in 
the  list  of  the  successors  of  the  Prophet,  much  as 
Alexander  YI  and  his  immediate  predecessors  do  in 
that  of  the  Popes. 

To  Ali  succeeded  his  son,  al-Hasan,  but  his  name 


28  CONSTITUTIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

does  not  stand  on  the  roll  of  the  Khalifa  te  as  usually 
reckoned.      It  shows  some   Shi 'it  e  tinge  when  the 
historian    says,    "  In   the    Khalifate    of    al-Hasan," 
and,   thereafter,   proceeds   with,    "In   the    days    of 
Mu'awiya,"  the  Umayyad  Khalifa  who  followed  him. 
Mu'awiya  had  received  the  allegiance  of  the  Syrian 
Muslims  and  when  he  advanced  on  al-Kufa,  where  al- 
Hasan  was,  al-Hasan  met  him  and  gave  over  into  his 
hands  all  his  supposed  rights.     That  was  in  a.h.  41 ; 
in  A.H.   49  he  was  dead  by  poison.      Twelve  years 
later  al-Husayn,  his  brother,  and  many  of  his  house 
fell  at  Karbala  in  battle  against  hopeless  odds.     It  is 
this  last  tragedy  that  has  left  the  deepest  mark  of  all 
on  the  Muslim  imagination.     Yearly  when  the  fatal 
day,  the  day  of  Ashura,  the  tenth  of  the  month  Mu- 
harram,  comes  round,  the  story  is  rehearsed  again  at 
Karbala  and  throughout,  indeed,  all  the  Shi'ite  world 
in  what  is  a  veritable  Passion  Play.     No  Muslim, 
especially  no  Persian,  can  read  of  the  death  of  al- 
Husayn,  or  see  it  acted  before  his  eyes,  without  quiv- 
ering and  invoking  the  curse  of  God  upon  all  those 
who  had  aught  to  do  with  it  or  gained  aught  by  it. 
That  curse  has  clung  fast  through  all  the  centuries  to 
the  name  of  Yazid,  the  Umayyad  Khalifa  of  the  time, 
and  only  the  stiffest  theologians  of  the  traditional 
school  have  labored  to  save  his  memory  through  the 
merits  of  the  historical  Khalifate.     But  even  after 
this  tragedy  it  was  not  out  with  the  blood  of  Muham- 
mad. Many  descendants  were  left  and  their  party  lived 
on  in  strange,  half  underground  fashion,  as  sects  do  in 
the   East,    occasionally    coming  to  the   surface   and 
bursting  out  in  wild  and,  for  long,  useless  rebellion. 


SHI'ITE   CONSTITUTIONAL   THEORIES  29 

In  these  revolts  the  Shi'a  was  worthy  of  its  name, 
and  split  into  many  separate  divisions,  according  to 
the  individuals  of  the  house  of  Ali  to  whom  alle- 
giance was  rendered  and  who  were  regarded  as  leaders, 
titular  or  real.  These  subdivisions  differed,  also,  in 
the  principle  governing  the  choice  of  a  leader  and 
in  the  attitude  of  the  people  toward  him.  Shi'ism, 
from  being  a  political  question,  became  theological. 
The  position  of  the  Shi'ite  was  and  is  that  there  must 
be  a  law  (nass)  regulating  the  choice  of  the  Imam,  or 
leader  of  the  Muslim  community ;  that  that  law  is 
one  of  the  most  important  dogmas  of  the  faith  and 
cannot  have  been  left  by  the  Prophet  to  develop  itself 
under  the  pressure  of  circumstances ;  that  there  is 
such  an  Imam  clearly  pointed  out  and  that  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  Muslim  to  seek  him  out  and  follow  him. 
Thus  there  was  a  party  who  regarded  the  leadership 
as  belonging  to  Ali  himself,  and  then  to  any  of  his 
descendants  by  any  of  his  wives.  These  attached 
themselves  especially  to  his  son  Muhammad,  known 
from  his  mother  as  Muhammad  ibn  al-Hanafiya,  who 
died  in  81,  and  to  his  descendants  and  successors.  It 
was  in  this  sect  that  the  most  characteristic  Shi'ite 
views  first  developed.  This  Muhammad  seems  to 
have  been  the  first  concerning  whom  it  was  taught, 
after  his  death,  that  he  was  being  preserved  by  God 
alive  in  retirement  and  would  come  forth  at  his  ap- 
pointed time  to  bring  in  the  rule  of  righteousness 
upon  the  earth.  In  some  of  the  innumerable  sub- 
sects  the  doctrine  of  the  deity,  even,  of  Ali  was  early 
held,  in  others  a  doctrine  of  metempsychosis,  gen- 
erally among  men  and  especially  from  one  Imam  to 


30  CONSTITUTIONAL  DEVELOPMENT 

liis  successor;  others,  again,  advanced  the  duty  of 
seeking  the  rightful  Imam  and  rendering  allegiance 
to  him  till  it  covered  the  whole  field  of  faith  and 
morals — no  more  was  required  of  the  believer.  To 
one  of  these  sects,  al-Mukanna,  "the  Veiled  Proj^het 
of  Khorasan,"  adhered  before  he  started  on  his  own 
account. 

We  have  seen  already  that  so  early  as  32  the  doc- 
trine had  been  preached  in  Egypt  that  Ali  was  the 
God-appointed  successor  of  the  Prophet.  Here  we 
have  its  legitimate  development,  which  was  all  the 
quicker  as  it  had,  or  assumed,  a  theological  basis,  and 
did  not  simply  urge  the  claims  to  leadership  of  the 
family  of  the  Prophet  after  the  fashion  in  which  in- 
heritance runs  among  earthly  kings.  That  was  the 
position  at  first  of  the  other  and  far  more  important 
Shi'ite  wing.  It  regarded  the  leadership  as  being  in 
the  blood  of  Muhammad  and  therefore  limited  to  the 
children  of  Ali  by  his  wife  Fatima,  the  daughter  of 
Muhammad.  Again,  the  attitude  toward  the  person 
of  the  leader  varied,  as  we  have  already  seen.  One 
party  held  that  the  leadership  was  by  the  right  of  the 
appointment  of  God,  but  that  the  leader  himself  was 
simply  a  man  as  other  men.  These  would  add  to 
"  the  two  words  "  {al-halimatani)  of  the  creed,  "  There 
is  no  god  but  God,  and  Muhammad  is  the  Apostle  of 
God,"  a  third  clause,  "  and  Ali  is  the  rej)resentative 
of  God."  Others  regarded  him  as  an  incarnation  of 
divinity ;  a  continuing  divine  revelation  in  human 
form.  His  soul  passed,  when  he  died,  to  his  next 
successor.  He  was,  therefore,  infallible  and  sinless, 
and  was  to  be  treated  with  absolute,  blind  obedience. 


THE  HIDDEN   IMAM  31 

Here  there  is  a  mingling  of  the  most  strangely  varied 
ideas.  In  Persia  the  people  had  been  too  long  ac- 
customed to  looking  upon  their  rulers  as  divine  for 
them  to  be  capable  of  taking  up  any  other  position. 
A  story  is  told  of  the  governor  of  a  Persian  province 
who  wrote  to  the  Khalifa  of  his  time  that  he  was  not 
able  to  prevent  his  people  from  giving  him  the  style 
and  treatment  of  a  god;  they  did  not  understand 
any  other  kind  of  ruler;  it  was  as  much  as  his 
authority  was  worth  to  attempt  to  make  them  desist. 
From  this  attitude,  combined  with  the  idea  of  the 
transmigration  of  souls,  the  extreme  Shi'ite  doctrine 
was  derived. 

But  though  the  party  of  Ali  might  regard  the 
descendants  of  Ali  as  semi-divine,  yet  their  conspir- 
acies and  revolts  were  uniformly  unsuccessful,  and  it 
became  a  very  dangerous  thing  to  head  one.  The 
party  was  willing  to  get  up  a  rising  at  any  time, 
but  the  leader  was  apt  to  hang  back.  In  fact,  one  of 
the  most  cmious  features  of  the  whole  movement  was 
the  uselessness  of  the  family  of  Ali  and  the  extent  to 
which  they  were  utilized  by  others.  They  have  been, 
in  a  sense,  the  cat's-paws  of  history.  Gradually  they 
themselves  drew  back  into  retirement  and  vanished 
from  the  stage,  and,  with  their  vanishing,  a  new 
doctrine  arose.  It  was  that  of  the  hidden  Imam. 
We  have  already  seen  the  case  of  Muhammad  ibn 
al-Hanafiya,  whom  Muslims  reckon  as  the  first  of 
these  concealed  ones.  Another  descendant  of  Ali,  on 
another  line  of  descent,  vanished  in  the  same  way  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  second  century  of  the  Hijra,  and 
another  about  a.h.  260.     Their  respective   followers 


32  CONSTITUTIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

held  that  they  were  being  kept  in  concealment  by 
God  and  Avould  be  brought  back  at  the  appointed  time 
to  rule  over  the  world  and  bring  in  a  kind  of  Muslim 
millennium.  This  is  the  oriental  version  of  the  story 
of  Arthur  in  Avalon  and  of  Frederick  Barbarossa  in 
Kyffhaiiser. 

But  that  has  led  us  far  away  and  we  must  go  back 
to  the  fall  of  the  Umayyads  and  the  again  disap- 
pointed hopes  of  the  Alids.  By  the  time  of  the  last 
Khalifa  of  the  Umayyad  house,  Marwan  II,  a.h.  127- 
132  (a.d.  744-750),  the  whole  empire  was  more  or  less 
in  rebellion,  partly  Sbi'ite  and  partly  Kharijite.  The 
Shi'ites  themselves  had,  as  usual,  no  man  strong 
enough  to  act  as  leader ;  that  part  was  taken  by  as- 
Saffah,  a  descendant  of  al- Abbas,  an  uncle  of  Muham- 
mad. The  rebellion  was  ostensibly  to  bring  again 
into  power  the  family  of  the  Prophet,  but  under  that 
the  Abbasids  understood  the  family  of  Hashim,  while 
the  Alids  took  it  in  the  more  exact  sense  of  them- 
selves. They  were  made  a  cat's-paw,  the  Abbasid 
dynasty  was  founded,  and  they  were  thrown  over. 
Thus,  the  Khalifate  remained  persistently  in  the 
hands  of  those  who,  up  to  the  last,  had  been  hostile 
to  the  Prophet.  This  al- Abbas  had  embraced  the 
faith  only  when  Mecca  was  taken  by  the  Muslims. 
Later  historians,  jealous  for  the  good  name  of  the 
ancestor  of  the  longest  line  of  all  the  Successors,  have 
labored  to  build  up  a  legend  that  al-Abbas  stayed  in 
Mecca  only  because  he  could  there  be  more  useful  in 
the  cause  of  his  nephew.  This  is  one  of  the  per- 
versions of  early  history  of  which  the  Muslim  chron- 
icles are  full. 


UMAYYADS   OF   SPAIN  33 

But  the  story  of  the  Umayyacls  is  not  yet  out. 
From  the  ruin  that  overwhelmed  them,  one  escaped 
and  fled  to  North  Africa.  There,  he  vainly  tried  to 
draw  together  a  power.  At  last,  seeing  in  Spain 
some  better  prospect  of  success,  he  crossed  thither, 
and  by  courage,  statesmanship,  and  patience,  carved 
out  a  new  Umayyad  empire  that  lasted  for  300  years. 
One  of  his  descendants  in  a.h.  317  (a.d.  929)  took  the 
title  of  Khalifa  and  claimed  the  homage  due  to  the 
Commander  of  the  Faithful.  There  is  a  story  that 
al-Mansur,  the  second  Abbasid,  once  asked  his  court- 
iers, "Who  is  the  Falcon  of  Quraysh?"  They 
named  one  after  another  of  the  great  men  of  the 
tribe,  beginning,  naturally,  with  his  majesty  himself, 
but  to  no  purpose.  "No,"  he  said,  "the  Falcon 
of  Quraysh  is  Abd  ar-Kahman,  the  Umayyad,  who 
found  his  way  over  deserts  and  seas,  flung  himself 
alone  into  a  strange  country,  and  there,  without  any 
helper  but  himself,  built  up  a  realm.  There  has 
been  none  like  him  of  the  blood  of  Quraysh." 


CHAPTEE  II 

Shi'ite  revolts  against  Abbasids  ;  Idrisids ;  Zaydites ;  Imamites  ; 
the  Twelvers ;  constitutional  theory  of  modern  Persia ;  origin 
of  Fatimids ;  Maymun  the  oculist ;  plan  of  the  conspiracy ;  the 
Seveners  ;  the  Qarmatians ;  Ubayd  Allah  al-Mahdi  and  found- 
ing of  Fatimid  dynasty  in  North  Africa ;  their  spread  to  Egypt 
and  to  Syria;  al-Hakim  Bi'amrillah  ;  the  Druses;  the  Assas- 
sins ;  Saladin  and  the  Ayyubids. 

It  is  not  in  place  here  to  deal  with  all  the  number- 
less little  Shi'ite  revolts  against  the  Abbasids  which 
now  followed.  Those  only  are  of  interest  to  us  which 
had  more  or  less  permanent  effect  on  the  Muslim 
state  and  states.  Earliest  among  such  comes  the 
revolt  which  founded  the  dynasty  of  the  Idrisids. 
About  the  middle  of  the  second  century  the  Abba- 
sids were  hard  pressed.  The  heavens  themselves 
seemed  to  mingle  in  the  conflict.  The  early  years  of 
their  rule  had  been  marked  by  great  showers  of 
shooting  stars,  and  the  end  of  the  age  was  reckoned 
near  by  both  parties.  Messianic  hope  was  alive,  and 
a  Mahdi,  a  Guided  of  God,  was  looked  for.  This 
had  long  been  the  attitude  of  the  Alids,  and  the 
Abbasids  began  to  feel  a  necessity  to  gain  for  their 
de  facto  rule  the  sanction  of  theocratic  hopes.  In 
143  Halley's  comet  was  visible  for  twenty  days,  and 
in  147  there  were  again  showers  of  shooting  stars. 
On  the  part  of  the  Abbasids,  homage  was  solemnly 

rendered  to  the  eldest  son  of  al-Mansur,  the  Khalifa 

84 


IDRISIDS  35 

of  the  time,  as  successor  of  his  father,  under  the  title 
al-Mahdi,  and  several  sayings  were  forged  and  as- 
cribed to  the  Prophet  which  told  who  and  what 
manner  of  man  the  Mahdi  would  be,  in  terms  which 
clearly  pointed  to  this  heir-apparent.  The  Alids,  on 
their  side,  were  urged  on  to  fresh  revolts.  These  ris- 
ings were  still  political  in  character  and  hardly  at  all 
theological ;  they  expressed  the  claims  to  sovereignty 
of  the  house  of  the  Prophet.  On  the  suppression  of 
one  of  them  at  al-Madina  in  169,  Idris  ibn  Abd  Allah, 
a  grandson  of  al-Hasan,  escaped  to  North  Africa — 
that  refuge  of  the  politically  disaffected — and  there 
at  the  far-off  Volubilis  of  the  Romans,  in  the  modern 
Morocco,  founded  a  state.  It  lasted  till  375,  and 
planted  firmly  the  authority  of  the  family  of  Mu- 
hammad in  the  western  half  of  North  Africa.  Other 
Alid  states  rose  in  its  place,  and  in  961  the  dynasty 
of  the  Sharif s  of  Morocco  was  established  by  a  Mu- 
hammad, a  descendant  of  a  Muhammad,  brother  of 
the  same  Abd  Allah,  grandson  of  al-Hasan.  This 
family  still  rules  in  Morocco  and  claims  the  title  of 
Khalifa  of  the  Prophet  and  Commander  of  the  Faith- 
ful. Strictly,  they  are  Shi'ites,  but  their  sectarianism 
sits  lightly  upon  them  ;  it  is  political  only  and  they 
have  no  touch  of  the  violent  religious  antagonism  to 
the  Sunnite  Muslims  that  is  to  be  found  in  Persian 
Shi'ism.  As  adherents  of  the  legal  school  of  Malik 
ibn  Anas,  their  Sunna  is  the  same  as  that  of  ortho- 
dox Islam.  The  Sahih  of  al-Bukhari  (see  below, 
p.  79  )  is  held  in  especially  high  reverence,  and  one 
division  of  the  Moorish  army  alwaj^s  carries  a  copy 
of  it  as  a  talisman.     They  are  really  a  bit  of  the  sec- 


36  CONSTITUTIONAL  DEVELOPMENT 

outl  century  of  tlie  Hijra  crystallized  aud  surviving 
into  our  time. 

Another  Sbi'ite  line  wliicli  lasts  more  or  less  down 
to  the  present  day,  is  that  of  the   Zaydites   of  al- 
Yaman.     They  Avere  so  called  from  their  adherence 
to  Zayd,  a  grandson  of  al-Husayn,  and   their  sect 
spread  in  north  Persia  and  south  Arabia.     The  north 
Persian  branch  is  of  little  historic  importance  for  our 
purpose.     For  some  sixty-four  years,  from  250  on,  it 
held  Tabaristan,  struck  coins  and  exercised  all  sover- 
eign rights ;  then  it  fell  before  the  Samanids.     The 
other  branch  has  had  a  much  longer  history.     It  was 
founded  about  280,  at  Sa'da  in  al-Yaman  and  there, 
and  later  at  San'a,  Zaydite  Imams  have  ruled  off  aud 
on   till   our   day.     The    Turkish   hold   upon    south 
Arabia  has  always  been  of  the  slightest.     Sometimes 
they  have  been  absolutely  expelled  from  the  country, 
and   their  control   has   never  extended  beyond    the 
limits  of  their   garrisoned  posts.     The   position    of 
these  Zaydites  was  much  less  extreme  than  that  of 
the   other   Shi'ites.     They  were   strictly   Fatimites, 
that   is,  they  held   that   any  descendant  of   Fatima 
could  be  Imam.    Further,  circumstances  might  justify 
the  passing  over,  for  a  time,  of  such  a  legitimate 
Imam  and  the  election  as  leader  of  someone  who  had 
no  equally  good  claim.     Thus,  they  reverenced  Abu 
Bakr  and  Umar  and  regarded  their  Khalifate  as  just, 
even  though  Ali  was  there  with  a  better  claim.     The 
election  of  these  two  Khalifas  had  been  to  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  Muslim  state.     Some  of  them  even 
accepted   the   Khalifate    of    IJthman   and   only   de- 
nounced his  evil  deeds.     Further,  they  regarded  it  as 


IMAMITES  37 

possible  that  there  might  be  two  Imams  at  the  same 
time,  especially  when  they  were  in  countries  widely 
apart.  This,  apparently,  sprang  from  the  sect  be- 
ing divided  between  north  Persia  and  south  Ara- 
bia. Theologically,  or  philosophically — it  is  hard  to 
hold  the  two  apart  in  Islam — the  Zaydites  were 
accused  of  rationalism.  Their  founder,  Zayd,  the 
grandson  of  al-Husayn,  had  studied  under  the 
great  Mu'tazilite,  Wasil  ibn  Ata,  of  whom  much 
more  hereafter. 

But  if  the  Zaydites  were  lax  both  in  their  theology 
and  in  their  theory  of  the  state,  that  cannot  be  said 
of  another  division  of  the  Shi'ites,  called  the  Imam- 
ites  on  account  of  the  stress  which  they  laid  on  the 
doctrine  of  the  person  of  the  Imam.  For  them  the 
Imam  of  the  time  was  explicitly  and  personally  in- 
dicated, Ali  by  Muhammad  and  each  of  the  others 
in  turn  by  his  predecessor.  But  it  was  hard  to  rec- 
oncile with  this  a  pj^iori  position  that  an  Imam  must 
have  been  indicated,  the  fact  that  there  was  no  agree- 
ment as  to  the  Imam  who  had  been  indicated.  Down 
all  possible  lines  of  descent  the  sacred  succession  was 
traced  until,  of  the  seventy-two  sects  that  the  Prophet 
had  foretold  for  his  people,  seventy,  at  least,  were 
occupied  by  the  Imamites  alone.  Further,  the  num- 
ber of  Hidden  Imams  was  constantly  running  up  ; 
with  every  generation,  Alids  found  it  convenient  to 
withdraw  into  retirement  and  have  reports  given  out 
of  their  own  deaths.  Then  two  sects  would  come 
into  existence — one  which  stopped  at  the  Alid  in 
question,  and  said  that  he  was  being  kept  in  con- 
cealment by  God  to  be  brought  back  at  His  pleas- 


38  CONSTITUTIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

ure  ;  and  another  which  passed  the  Imamship  on  to 
the  next  generation.     Out  of  this  chaos  two  sects,  ad- 
hering to  two  series  of  Imams,  stand  clear  through 
their  historical  importance.     The  one  is  that  of  the 
Twelvers  {Ithna'ashariya)  ;  theirs  is  the  official  creed 
of   modern   Persia.     About  A.H.  260  a  certain   Mu- 
hammad ibn  al-Hasan,  twelfth  in  descent  from  Ali, 
vanished  in  the  way  just  described.     The  sect  which 
looked  for  his  return  increased  and  flourished  until, 
at  length,  with  the   conquest  of  Persia  in  A.H.  907 
(a.d.  1502)  by  the  Safawids — a  family  of  Alid  descent 
which    joined   arms   to   sainthood  —  Persia   became 
Shi'ite,  and  the  series  of  the  Shahs  of  Persia  was 
begun.     The  position  of  the  Shah  is  therefore  essen- 
tially different  from  that  of  the  Khalifa  of  the  Sun- 
nites.     The  Khalifa  is  the  successor  of  Muhammad, 
with  a  dignity  and  authority  which  inheres  in  him- 
self;  he  is  both  king  and  pontiff;   the  Shah  is  a 
mere    locu7n   tenens^   and   reigns   only   until   God   is 
pleased   to   restore    to   men  the   true   Imam.     That 
Imam  is  still  in  existence,  though  hidden  from  hu- 
man eyes.     The  Shah,  therefore,  has  strictly  no  legal 
authority ;  he  is  only  a  guardian  of  the  public  order. 
True   legal   authority  lies,  rather,  with   the  learned 
doctors  of  religion  and  law.     As  a  consequence  of 
this,  the  Shi'ites  still  have  MujtaUds,  divines  and 
legists  who  have  a  right  to  form  opinions  of  their 
own,  can  expound  the  original  sources  at  first  hand, 
and  can  claim  the  unquestioning  assent  of  their  dis- 
ciples.    Such  men  have  not  existed  among  the  Sun- 
nites  since  the  middle  of  the  third  century  of  the 
Hijra ;   from  that  time  on  all  Sunnites  have  been 


FATIMIDS  39 

compelled  to  swear  to  the  words  of  some  master  or 
other,  long  dead. 

This  division  of  the  Shi'ites  is  the  only  one  that 
exists  in  great  numbers  down  to  the  present  day. 
The  second  of  the  two  mentioned  above  came  to 
power  earlier,  ran  a  shorter  course,  and  has  now  van- 
ished from  the  stage,  leaving  nothing  but  an  histor- 
ical mystery  and  two  or  three  fossilized,  half -secret 
sects — strange  survivals  which,  like  the  survivals  of 
geology,  tell  us  what  were  the  living  and  dominant 
forces  in  the  older  world.     It  will  be  worth  while  to 
enter  upon  some  detail  in  reciting  its  history,  both 
for  its  own  romantic  interest  and  as  an  example  of 
the   methods    of    Shi'ite   propaganda.      Its   success 
shows  how  the  Abbasid  empire  was  gradually  under- 
mined and  brought  to  its  fall.     It  itself  was  the  most 
magnificent  conspiracy,  or  rather  fraud,  in  all  his- 
tory.    To  understand  its  possibility  and  its  results, 
we  must  hold  in  mind  the  nature  of  the  Persian  race 
and  the  condition  of  that  race  at  this  time.     Herodo- 
tus was  told  by  his  Persian  friends  that  one  of  the 
three  things  Persian  youth  was  taught  was  to  tell  the 
truth.     That  may  have  been  the  case  in  the  time  of 
Herodotus,  but  certainly  this  teaching  has  had  no 
effect  whatever  on  an  innate  tendency  in  the  oppo- 
site direction ;  and  it  is  just  possible  that  Herodo- 
tus's  friends,  in  giving  him   that  information,  were 
giving  also  an  example  of  this  tendency.     Travellers 
have  been  told  curious  things  before  now,  but  cer- 
tainly none  more  curious  than  this.     As  we  know  the 
Persian  in  history,  he  is  a  born  liar.     He  is,  there- 
fore, a  born  conspirator.     He  has  great  quickness  of 


40  CONSTITUTIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

mind,  adaptability,  and,  apart  from  religious  emo- 
tion, no  conscience.  In  the  third  century  of  the 
Hijra  (the  nintli  a.d.),  the  Persians  were  either  de- 
voted Shi'ites  or  simple  unbelievers.  The  one  class 
would  do  anything  for  the  descendants  of  Ali ;  the 
other,  anything  for  themselves.  This  second  class, 
further,  would  by  preference  combine  doing  some- 
thing for  themselves  with  doing  something  against 
Islam  and  the  Arabs,  the  conquerors  of  their  coun- 
try.    So  much  by  way  of  premise. 

In  the  early  part  of  this  third  century,  there  lived 
at  Jerusalem  a  Persian  oculist  named  Maymun.  He 
was  a  man  of  high  education,  professional  and  other- 
wise ;  had  no  beliefs  to  speak  of,  and  understood  the 
times.  He  had  a  son,  Abd  Allah,  and  trained  him 
carefully  for  a  career.  Abd  Allah,  however — known 
as  Abd  Allah  ibn  Maymun — though  he  had  thought 
of  starting  as  a  prophet  himself,  saw  that  the  time 
was  not  ripe,  and  planned  a  larger  and  more  magnif- 
icent scheme.  This  was  to  be  no  ordinary  conspir- 
acy to  burst  after  a  few  years  or  months,  but  one 
requiring  generations  to  develop.  It  was  to  bring 
universal  dominion  to  his  descendants,  and  overthrow 
Islam  and  the  Arab  rule.  It  succeeded  in  great  part, 
very  nearly  absolutely. 

His  plan  was  to  unite  all  classes  and  parties  in  a 
conspiracy  under  one  head,  promising  to  each  indi- 
vidual the  things  which  he  considered  most  desir- 
able. For  the  Shi'ites,  it  was  to  be  a  Shi'ite  conspir- 
acy ;  for  the  Kharijites,  it  took  a  Kharijite  tinge ; 
for  Persian  nationalists,  it  was  anti-Arab ;  for  free- 
thinkers, it  was  frankly  nihilistic.     Abd  Allah  him- 


A  UNIQUE   CONSPIRACY  41 

self  seems  to  Lave  been  a  sceptic  of  the  most  refined 
stamp.  The  working  of  this  plan  was  achieved  by 
a  system  of  grades  like  those  in  freemasonry.  His 
emissaries  went  out,  settled  each  in  a  village  and 
gradually  won  the  confidence  of  its  inhabitants,  A 
marked  characteristic  of  the  time  was  unrest  and 
general  hostility  to  the  government.  Thus,  there 
was  an  excellent  field  for  work.  To  the  enormous 
majority  of  those  involved  in  it  the  conspiracy  was 
Shi'ite  only,  and  it  has  been  regarded  as  such  by 
many  of  its  historians ;  but  it  is  now  tolerably  plain 
how  simply  nihilistic  were  its  ultimate  principles. 
The  first  object  of  the  missionary  was  to  excite  re- 
ligious doubt  in  the  mind  of  his  subject,  by  pointing 
out  curious  difficulties  and  subtle  questions  in  theol- 
ogy. At  the  same  time  he  hinted  that  there  were 
those  who  conld  answer  these  questions.  If  his  sub- 
ject proved  tractable  and  desired  to  learn  further,  an 
oath  of  secrecy  and  absolute  obedience  and  a  fee 
were  demanded — all  quite  after  the  modern  fashion. 
Then  he  was  led  up  through  several  grades,  gradu- 
ally shaking  his  faith  in  orthodox  Islam  and  its 
teachers  and  bringing  him  to  believe  in  the  idea  of 
an  Imam,  or  guide  in  religious  things,  till  the  fourth 
grade  was  reached.  There  the  theological  system 
was  developed,  and  Islam,  for  the  first  time,  abso- 
lutely deserted.  We  have  dealt  already  with  the 
doctrine  of  the  Hidden  Imam  and  with  the  present- 
day  creed  of  Persia,  that  the  twelfth  in  descent  from 
Ali  is  in  hiding  and  will  return  when  his  time  comes. 
But  down  the  same  line  of  descent  seven  Imams  had 
been  reckoned  to  a  certain  vanished  Isma'il,  and  this 


42  CONSTITUTIONAL  DEVELOPMENT 

Isma'il  was  adopted  by  Abd  Allah  ibn  Maymun  as 
his  Imam  and  as  titular  head  of  his  conspiracy. 
Hence,  his  followers  are  called  Isma'ilians  and  Sev- 
eners  {SabHya).  The  story  which  is  told  of  the  split 
between  the  Seveners  and  the  Twelvers,  which  were 
to  be,  is  characteristic  of  the  whole  movement  and  of 
the  wider  divergence  of  the  Seveners  from  ordinary 
Islam  and  its  laws.  The  sixth  Imam  was  Ja'far  as- 
Sadiq  (d.  a.h.  148)  ;  he  appointed  his  son  Isma'il  as 
his  successor.  But  Isma'il  was  found  drunk  on  one 
occasion,  and  his  father  in  wrath  passed  the  Imamship 
on  to  his  brother,  Musa  al-Qazam,  who  is  accord- 
ingly reckoned  as  seventh  Imam  by  the  Twelvers. 
One  party,  however,  refused  to  recognize  this  trans- 
fer. Isma'il's  drunkenness,  they  held,  was  a  proof  of 
his  greater  spirituality  of  mind ;  he  did  not  follow  the 
face-value  (zahr)  of  the  law,  but  its  hidden  meaning 
ihatn).  This  is  an  example  of  a  tendency,  strong  in 
Shi'ism,  to  find  a  higher  spiritual  meaning  lying 
within  the  external  or  verbal  form  of  the  law ;  and  in 
proportion  as  a  sect  exalted  Ali,  so  it  diverged  from 
literal  acceptance  of  the  Qur'an.  The  most  extreme 
Shi'ites,  who  tended  to  deify  their  Imam,  were 
known  on  that  account  as  Batinites  or  Innerites. 
On  this  more  hereafter. 

But  to  return  to  the  Seveners :  in  the  fourth  grade 
a  further  refinement  was  added.  Everything  went  in 
sevens,  the  Prophets  as  well  as  the  Imams.  The 
Prophets  had  been  Adam,  Noah,  Abraham,  Moses, 
Jesus,  Muhammad  and  Isma'il,  or  rather  his  son 
Muhammad,  for  Isma'il  himself  had  died  in  his 
father's  lifetime.     Each  of  these  Prophets  had  had  a 


THE   SYSTEM   OF   SEVENS  43 

helper.  The  helper  of  Adam  had  been  Seth ;  of 
Noah,  Shem  ;  and  the  helper  of  Muhammad,  the  son 
of  Isma'il,  was  Abd  Allah  ibn  Maymun  himself.  Be- 
tween each  pair  of  Prophets  there  came  six  Imams — 
it  must  be  remembered  that  the  world  was  never  left 
without  an  Imam — but  these  Imams  had  had  no  rev- 
elation to  make ;  were  only  guides  to  already  re- 
vealed truth.  Thus,  we  have  a  series  of  seven  times 
seven  Imams,  the  first,  and  thereafter  each  seventh, 
having  the  superior  dignity  of  Prophet.  The  last  of 
the  forty -nine  Imams,  this  Muhammad  ibn  Isma'il,  is 
the  greatest  and  last  of  the  Prophets,  and  Abd  Allah 
ibn  Maymun  has  to  prepare  the  way  for  him  and  to 
aid  him  generally.  It  is  at  this  point  that  the  ad- 
herent of  this  system  ceases  to  be  a  Muslim.  The 
idea  of  a  series  of  Prophets  is  genuinely  Islamic,  but 
Muhammad,  in  Muslim  theology,  is  the  last  of  the 
Prophets  and  the  greatest,  and  after  him  there  will 
come  no  more. 

Such,  then,  was  the  system  that  those  who  passed 
the  fourth  degree  learned  and  accepted.  The  great 
majority  did  not  pass  beyond ;  but  those  who  were 
judged  worthy  were  admitted  to  three  further  degrees. 
In  these  degrees,  their  respect  for  religious  teaching 
of  every  kind,  doctrinal,  moral,  ritual,  was  gradually 
undermined ;  the  Prophets  and  their  works  were  de- 
preciated and  philosophy  and  philosophers  put  in 
their  place.  The  end  was  to  lead  the  very  few  who 
were  admitted  to  the  inmost  secrets  of  the  conspiracy 
to  the  same  position  as  its  founder.  It  is  clear  what 
a  tremendous  weapon,  or  rather  machine,  was  thus 
created.     Each  man  was  given  the  amount  of  light  he 


44  CONSTITUTIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

could  bear  and  which  was  suited  to  his  prejudices, 
aud  he  was  made  to  believe  that  the  end  of  the  whole 
work  would  be  the  attaining  of  what  he  regarded  as 
most  desirable.  The  missionaries  were  all  things  to 
all  men,  in  the  broadest  sense,  and  could  work  w\ith 
a  Kharijite  fanatic,  who  longed  for  the  days  of  Umar  ; 
a  Bedawi  Arab,  whose  only  idea  was  plunder ;  a 
Persian  driven  to  wild  cries  and  tears  by  the  thought 
of  the  fate  of  Ali,  the  well-beloved,  and  of  his  sons ; 
a  peasant,  who  did  not  care  for  any  family  or  religion 
but  only  wished  to  live  in  peace  and  be  let  alone  by 
the  tax-gatherers  ;  a  Syrian  mystic,  who  did  not  know 
very  well  what  he  thought,  but  lived  in  a  world  of 
dreams ;  or  a  materialist,  whose  desire  was  to  clear 
all  religions  out  of  the  way  and  give  humanity  a 
chance.  All  was  fish  that  came  to  their  net.  So  the 
long  seed-planting  went  on.  Abd  Allah  ibn  Maymun 
had  to  flee  to  Salamiya  in  Syria,  died  there  and  went 
to  his  own  place — if  he  got  his  deserts,  no  desirable 
one — and  Ahmad,  his  son  or  grandson,  took  up  the 
work  in  his  stead.  With  him  the  movement  tends  to 
the  surface,  and  we  begin  to  touch  hard  facts  and 
dates.  In  southern  Mesopotamia — what  is  called  the 
Arab  Iraq — we  find  a  sect  appearing,  nicknamed  Qar- 
matians,  from  one  of  their  leaders.  In  a.h.  277 
(a.d.  890-1)  they  were  sufficiently  numerous  and 
knew  their  strength  enough  to  hold  a  fortress  and 
thus  enter  upon  open  rebellion.  They  were  peasants, 
we  must  remember,  Nabateans  and  no  Arabs,  only 
Muslims  by  compulsion,  and  thus  what  we  have  here 
is  really  a  Jacquerie,  or  Peasants'  AVar.  But  a  dis- 
turbance of  any  kind  suited  the  Isma'ilians.     From 


UBAYD    ALLAH   AL-MAHDI  45 

there  the  rising  spread  into  Bahrayn  and  on  to  south 
Arabia,  varying  in  its  character  with  the  character  of 
the  people. 

But  there  was  another  still  more  important  devel- 
opment in  progress.  A  missionary  had  gone  to  North 
Africa  and  there  worked  with  success  among  the 
Berber  tribes  about  Constantine,  in  what  is  now 
Algeria.  These  have  ahvays  been  ready  for  any 
change.  He  gave  himself  out  as  forerunner  of  the 
Mahdi,  promised  them  the  good  of  both  worlds,  and 
called  them  to  arms.  The  actual  rising  was  in  a.h. 
269  (a.d.  902).  Then  there  appeared  among  them 
Sa'id,  the  son  of  Ahmad,  the  son  of  Abd  Allah,  the 
son  of  Maymun  the  oculist;  but  it  was  not  under 
that  name.  He  was  now  Ubayd  Allah  al-Mahdi  him- 
self, a  descendant  of  Ali  and  of  Muhammad  ibn 
Isma'il,  for  whom  his  ancestors  were  supposed  to 
have  worked  and  built  up  this  conspiracy.  In  a.h 
296  (A.D.  909)  he  was  saluted  as  Commander  of  the 
Faithful,  with  the  title  of  al-Mahdi.  So  far  the  con- 
spiracy had  succeeded.  This  Fatimid  dynasty,  so 
they  called  themselves  from  Fatima,  their  alleged 
ancestress,  the  daughter  of  Muhammad,  conquered 
Egypt  and  Syria  half  a  century  later  and  held  them 
till  A.H.  567  (A.D.  1171).  When  in  a.h.  317  the  Umay- 
yads  of  Cordova  also  claimed  the  Khalifate  and  used 
the  title,  there  were  three  Commanders  of  the  Faith- 
ful at  one  time  in  the  Muslim  world.  Yet  it  should 
be  noticed  that  the  constitutional  position  of  these 
Umayyads  was  essentially  different  from  that  of  the 
Fatimids.  To  the  Fatimids,  the  Abbasids  were  usurp- 
ers.    The  Umayyads  of  Cordova,  on  the  other  hand,' 


46  CONSTITUTIONAL  DEVELOPMENT 

held,  like  the  Zajdites  and  some  jurisconsults  of  the 
highest  rank,  that,  when  Muslim  countries  were  so  far 
apart  that  the  authority  of  the  ruler  of  the  one  could 
not  make  itself  felt  in  the  other,  it  was  lawful  to  have 
two  Imams,  each  a  true  Successor  of  the  Prophet. 
The  good  of  the  people  of  Muhammad  demanded  it. 
Still,  the  unity  of  the  Khalifate  is  the  more  regular 
doctrine. 

But  only  half  of  the  work  was  done.  Islam  stood 
as  firmly  as  ever  and  the  conspiracy  had  only  pro- 
duced a  schism  in  the  faith  and  had  not  destroyed 
it.  Ubayd  Allah  was  in  the  awkward  position,  on 
the  one  hand,  of  ruling  a  people  who  were  in  great 
bulk  fanatical  Muslims  and  did  not  understand 
any  jesting  with  their  religion,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  of  being  head  of  a  conspiracy  to  destroy  that 
very  religion.  The  Syrians  and  Arabs  had  appar- 
ently taken  more  degrees  than  the  Egyptians  and 
North  Africans,  and  Ubayd  Allah  found  himself 
between  the  devil  and  the  deep  sea.  The  Qarma- 
tians  in  Arabia  plundered  the  pilgrim  caravans, 
stormed  the  holy  city  Mecca,  and,  most  terrible  of 
all,  carried  off  the  sacred  black  stone.  When  an 
enormous  ransom  was  offered  for  the  stone,  they  de- 
clined— they  had  orders  not  to  send  it  back.  Every- 
one understood  that  the  orders  were  from  Africa.  So 
Ubayd  Allah  found  it  advisable  to  address  them  in  a 
public  letter,  exhorting  them  to  be  better  Muslims. 
The  writing  and  reading  of  this  letter  must  have  been 
accompanied  by  mirth,  at  any  rate  no  attention  was 
paid  to  it  by  the  Qarmatians.  It  was  not  till  the 
time  of  the  third  Fatimid  Khalifa  that  they  were 


AL-HAKIM  47 

permitted  to  do  business  witli  that  stone.  Then 
they  sent  it  back  with  the  explanatory  or  apolo- 
getic remark  that  they  had  carried  it  off  tinder 
orders  and  now  sent  it  back  under  orders.  Mean- 
while the  Fatimid  dynasty  was  running  its  course  in 
Egypt  but  without  turning  the  people  of  Egypt  from 
Islam.  Yet  it  produced  one  strange  personality  and 
two  sects,  stranger  even  than  the  sect  to  which  it 
itself  owed  its  origin.  The  personality  is  that  of  al- 
Hakim  Bi'amrillah,  who  still  remains  one  of  the  great- 
est mysteries  that  are  to  be  met  with  in  history.  In 
many  ways  he  reminds  us  curiously  of  the  madness 
of  the  Julian  house ;  and,  in  truth,  such  a  secret 
movement  as  that  of  which  he  was  a  part,  carried 
on  through  generations  from  father  to  son,  could  not 
but  leave  a  trace  on  the  brain.  We  must  remember 
that  the  Khalifa  of  the  time  was  not  always  of  neces- 
sity the  head  of  the  conspiracy,  or  even  fully  initi- 
ated into  it.  In  the  latter  part  of  the  Fatimid  rule 
we  find  distinct  traces  of  such  a  power  behind  the 
throne,  consisting,  as  we  may  imagine,  of  descendants 
and  pupils  of  those  who  had  been  fully  initiated 
from  the  first  and  had  passed  through  all  the  grades. 
In  the  case  of  al-Hakim,  it  is  possible,  even,  to 
trace,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  development  of  his  in- 
itiation. During  the  first  part  of  his  reign  he  wns 
fanatically  Muslim  and  Shi'ite.  He  persecuted 
alternately  the  Christians  and  the  Jews,  and  then 
the  orthodox  and  the  Shi'ites.  In  the  latter  part, 
there  was  a  change.  He  had,  apparently,  reached  a 
point  of  philosophical  indifference,  for  the  persecu- 
tions of  Christians  and  Jews  ceased,  and  those  who 


*s 


48  CONSTITUTIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

had  been  forced  to  embrace  Islam  were  permitted  to 
relapse.     This  last  was  without  parallel,  till  in  1844 
Lord  Stratford  de  Eedcliffe  wrung  from  the  Porte 
the    concession  that  a    Muslim  who  apostatized  to 
Christianity   should   not    be   put    to   death.       But, 
mingled    with   this   indifference,  there     appeared    a 
strange  but  regular  development  of  Shi'ite  doctrine. 
Some  of  his  followers  began  to  proclaim  openly  that 
the  deity  was  incarnate  in  him,  and  it  was  evident 
that  he  himself    accepted  and  believed   this.      But 
the  Egyptian  populace  would  have  none  of  it,  and  the 
too  rash  innovators  had  to  flee.     Some  went  to  the 
Lebanon  and  there    preached  to    the  native  moun- 
tain   tribes.      The   results   of   their  labors   are   the 
Druses  of  to-day,   who  worship  al- Hakim  still  and 
expect  his  return  to  introduce  the  end  of  all  things. 
Finally,  al-Hakim  vanished  on  the  night  of  February 
12,  A.D.  1021,  and  left  a  mystery  unread  to  this  day. 
"Whether  he  was  murdered,  and  if  so  why,   or  van- 
ished of  free-will,  and  if  so  again  why,  we  have  no 
means  of  telling.     Our  guess  will  depend  upon  our 
reading  of  his  character.     So  much  is  certain,  that  he 
was  a  ruler  of  the  autocratic  type,  who  introduced 
many  reforms,  most  of  which  the  people  of  his  time 
could  not  in  the  least  understand  and  therefore  mis- 
represented as  the  mere  whims  of  a  tyrant,  and  many 
of  which,  from  our  ignorance,  are  still  obscure  to  us. 
If  we  can  imagine  such  a  man  of  strong  personality 
and  desire  for  the  good  of  his  people   but   with  a 
touch   of   madness   in   the   brain,   cast   thus   in   the 
midst  between  his  orthodox  subjects  and  a  wholly 
unbelieving    inner    government,   we    shall    perhaps 


THE   ASSASSINS  49 

have    the    clew    to    the     strange     stories    told    of 
him. 

Another  product  of  this  conspiracy,  and  the  last  to 
which  Ave  shall  refer,  is  the  sect  known  as  the  As- 
sassins, whose  Grand  Master  was  a  name  of  terror  to 
the  Crusaders  as  the  Old  Man  of  the  Mountain.  It, 
too,  was  founded,  and  apparently  for  a  purpose  of 
personal  vengeance,  by  a  Persian  who  began  as  a 
Shi'ite  and  ended  as  nothing.  He  came  to  Egypt, 
studied  under  the  Fatimids — they  had  established  at 
Cairo  a  great  school  of  science — and  returned  to 
Persia  as  their  agent  to  carry  on  their  propaganda. 
His  methods  were  the  same  as  theirs,  with  a  differ- 
ence. That  was  the  reduction  of  assassination  to  a 
fine  art.  From  his  eagle's  nest  of  Alamut — such  is 
the  meaning  of  the  name — and  later  from  Masyaf  in 
the  Lebanon  and  other  mountain  fortresses,  he  and 
his  successors  spread  terror  through  Persia  and 
Syria  and  were  only  finally  stamped  out  by  the  Mon- 
gol flood  under  Hulagu  in  the  middle  of  the  seventh 
century  of  the  Hijra  (the  13tli  a.d.).  Of  the  sect 
there  are  still  scattered  remnants  in  Syria  and  India, 
and  as  late  as  1866  an  English  judge  at  Bombay  had 
to  decide  a  case  of  disputed  succession  according  to 
the  law  of  the  Assassins.  Finally,  the  Fatimid 
dynasty  itself  fell  before  the  Kurd,  Salah  ad-Din, 
the  Saladin  of  our  annals,  and  Egypt  was  again  or- 
thodox. 


CHAPTER  III 

The  problem  of  the  Abbasids ;  the  House  of  Barmak  ;  the  crum- 
bling of  the  empire ;  the  Pra3torians  of  Baghdad ;  the  Buway- 
hids ;  the  situation  of  the  Khalifa  under  them ;  the  Saljuqs  ;  the 
possibilities  of  development  under  them ;  the  Mongols  and  the 
Abbasid  end ;  the  Egyptian  Abbasids ;  the  Ottoman  Sultans, 
their  heirs ;  theory  of  the  Khalifate ;  the  modern  situation ; 
the  signs  of  sovereignty  for  Muslims  ;  five  grounds  of  the  claim 
of  the  Ottoman  Sultan ;  the  consequences  for  the  Sultan  ;  other 
Muslim  constitutions  ;  the  Shi^tes  ;  the  Ibadites  ;  the  Wahha- 
bites ;  the  Brotherhood  of  as-Sanusi. 

We  must  now  return  to  tlie  Abbasids,  whose  em- 
pire we  left  crumbling  away.  It  was  a  slirewd  stroke 
of  policy  on  the  part  of  its  founder  to  put  the  new 
capital,  Baghdad,  on  the  Tigris,  right  between  Per- 
sia, Syria  and  Arabia.  For  the  only  hope  of  perma- 
nence to  the  empire  lay  in  welding  these  into  a  unity. 
For  a  short  time,  in  the  hands  of  the  first  vigorous 
rulers,  and,  especially,  during  fifty  years  of  guidance 
by  the  House  of  Barmak — Persians  who  flung  in 
their  lot  with  the  Abbasids  and  were  their  stay  till 
the  madness  of  Harun  ar-Bashid  cast  them  down — 
this  seemed  to  be  succeeding ;  but,  just  as  the  em- 
pire of  Charlemagne  melted  under  his  sons,  so  did 
the  empire  of  al-Mansur  and  al-Ma'mun.  The  Bed- 
awi  tribes  fell  back  into  the  desert  and  to  the  free 
chaos  of  the  old  pre-Islamic  life.  As  the  great  phil- 
osophical historian,  Ibn  Khaldun,  has  remarked,  the 

Arabs  by  their  nature  are  incapable  of  founding  an 

50 


CRUMBLING  OF  THE   EMPIRE  61 

empire  except  wlien  united  by  religious  enthusiasm, 
and  are  of  all  peoples  least  capable  of  governing  an 
empire  when  founded.  After  the  first  Abbasids,  it  is 
a  fatal  error  to  view  the  Muslim  dynasties  as  Arab 
or  to  speak  of  the  Muslim  civilization  as  Arabian. 
The  conquered  peoples  overcame  their  conquerors. 
Persian  nationalism  reasserted  itself  and  in  native 
independent  dynasties  flung  off  the  Arab  yoke. 
These  dynasties  were  mostly  Shi'ite ;  Shi'ism,  in 
great  part,  is  the  revolt  of  the  Aryan  against  Semit- 
ic monotheism.  The  process  in  all  this  was  gradual 
but  certain.  Governors  of  provinces  revolted  and 
became  semi-independent.  Sometimes  they  acknowl- 
edged a  shadowy  sovereignty  of  the  Khalifa,  b}^  hav- 
ing his  name  on  their  coins  and  in  the  Friday  prayers ; 
sometimes  they  did  not.  At  other  times  they  were, 
or  claimed  to  be,  Alids,  and  when  Alids  revolted, 
they  revolted  absolutely.  With  them,  it  was  a  ques- 
tion of  conscience.  At  last,  not  even  in  his  own  City 
of  Peace  or  in  his  own  palace  was  the  Khalifa  mas- 
ter. As  in  Rome,  so  in  Baghdad,  a  body-guard  of 
mercenaries  assumed  control  and  their  leader  was  de 
facto  ruler.  Later,  from  a.h.  320  to  447  (a.d.  932- 
1055),  the  Sunnite  Khalifa  found  himself  the  ward 
and  puppet  of  the  Shi'ite  Buwayhids.  Baghdad  it- 
self they  held  from  334.  But  still,  a  curious  spiritu- 
al value — we  cannot  call  it  authority — was  left  to  the 
shadowy  successors  of  Muhammad.  Muslim  j)rinces 
even  in  far-off  India  did  not  feel  quite  safe  upon 
their  thrones  unless  they  had  been  solemnly  in- 
vested by  the  Khalifa  and  given  their  fitting  titlec 
Those  very  rulers  in  whose  power  the  Khalifa's  life 


52  CONSTITUTIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

lay  sought  sanction  from  liim  for  tlieir  rule.  At  one 
time  there  seemed  to  be  some  hope  that  the  fatal 
unity  of  theocratical  Islam  wo  uld  be  broken  and  that 
a  dualism  with  promise  of  development  through  con- 
flict— such  as  the  rivalry  between  Pope  and  Emperor 
which  kept  Europe  alive  and  prevented  both  State 
and  Church  from  falling  into  decrepit  decay — might 
grow  up ;  that  the  Khalifa  might  become  a  purely 
spiritual  ruler  with  functions  of  his  own,  ruling  with 
mutucxl  subordination  and  co-ordinate  jurisdiction  be- 
side a  temporal  Sultan.  The  Buwayhids  were  Shi'- 
ites  and  merely  tolerated,  for  state  reasons,  the  im- 
pieties of  the  Sunnite  Khalifas.  But  in  447  (a.d. 
1055),  Tughril  Beg,  the  Saljuq,  entered  Baghdad, 
was  proclaimed  Sultan  of  the  Muslims  and  freed  the 
Khalifa  from  the  Shi'ite  yoke.  By  470,  all  western 
Asia,  from  the  borders  of  Afghanistan  to  those  of 
Egypt  and  the  Greek  Empire,  were  Saljuq.  With 
the  Saljuq  Sultan  as  Emperor  and  the  Khalifa  as 
Pope,  there  was  a  chance  that  the  Muslim  State  might 
enter  on  a  stage  of  healthy  growth  through  conflict. 
But  that  was  not  to  be.  Neither  State  nor  Church 
rose  to  the  great  opportunity  and  the  experiment  was 
finall}^  and  forever  cut  off  by  the  Mongol  flood. 
When  the  next  great  Sultanate— that  of  the  Ottoman 
Turks — arose,  it  gathered  into  its  hands  the  reins  of 
the  Khalifate  as  well.  This  is  what  might  have  been 
in  Islam,  built  on  actual  history  in  Europe.  The 
situation  that  did  arise  in  Islam  ma}^  become  more 
clear  to  us  if  we  can  imagine  that  in  Europe  the  vast 
plans  of  Gregory  YII.  had  been  carried  out  and  the 
Pope  had  become  the  temporal  as  well  as  the  spiritual 


SOVEEEIGNTT   OF   KHALIFATE  53 

head  of  the  Christian  world.  Such  a  situation  would 
have  been  similar  to  that  in  the  world  of  Islam  at  its 
earliest  time  during  some  few  years  under  the  dynasty 
of  the  Umayyads,  when  the  one  temporal  and  spirit- 
ual sovereign  ruled  from  Samarqand  to  Spain.  Then 
we  can  imagine  how  the  vast  fabric  of  such  an  impe- 
rial system  broke  down  by  its  own  weight.  Under 
conflicting  claims  of  legitimac}^  an  anti-Pope  arose 
and  the  great  schism  began.  Thereafter  the  process 
of  disintegration  was  still  more  rapid.  Provinces 
rose  in  insurrection  and  dropped  away  from  each 
rival  Pope.  Kingdoms  grew  up  and  the  sovereigns 
over  them  professed  themselves  to  be  the  lieutenants 
of  the  supreme  Pontiff  and  sought  investiture  from 
him.  Last,  the  States  of  the  Church  itseK — all  that 
was  left  to  it — came  under  the  rule  of  some  one  of 
these  princes  and  the  Pope  was,  to  all  intents,  a  pris- 
oner in  his  own  palace.  Yet  the  sovereignty  of  the 
Khalifa  was  not  simj^ly  a  legal  fiction,  any  more  than 
that  of  the  Pope  would  have  been  in  the  parallel  just 
sketched.  The  Muslim  princes  thought  it  well  to 
seek  spiritual  recognition  from  him,  just  as  Napoleon 
I.  found  it  prudent  to  have  himself  crowned  by  Pius 
VII. 

But  a  wave  was  soon  to  break  in  and  sweep  away 
all  these  forms.  It  came  with  the  Mongols  under 
Hulagu,  who  passed  from  the  destruction  of  the  As- 
sassins to  the  destruction  of  Baghdad  and  the  Kha- 
lifate.  In  a.h.  656  (a.d.  1258),  the  city  was  taken  and 
the  end  of  the  Abbasids  had  come.  An  uncle  of  the 
reigning  Khalifa  escaped  and  fled  to  Egypt,  where 
the  Mamluk   Sultan  received  him   and  gave   him  a 


54  CONSTITUTIONAL  DEVELOPMENT 

spiritual  court  and  ecclesiastical  recognition.  He 
found  it  good  to  have  a  Khalifa  of  his  own  to  use 
in  any  question  of  legitimacy.  The  name  had  yet 
so  much  value.  Finally,  in  1517,  the  Mamluk  rule 
went  down  before  the  Ottoman  Turks,  and  the  story 
told  by  them  is  that  the  last  Abbasid,  when  he  died 
in  1538,  gave  over  his  rights  to  their  Sultan,  Sulay- 
man  the  Great.  Since  then,  the  Ottoman  Sultan  of 
Constantinople  has  claimed  to  be  the  Khalifa  of 
Muhammad  and  the  spiritual  head  of  the  Muslim 
world. 

Such  were  the  fates  of  the  Commanders  of  the 
Faithful.  We  have  traced  them  through  a  long  and 
devious  course,  full  of  confusions  and  complications. 
Leaving  aside  the  legitimist  party,  the  whole  may  be 
summed  in  a  word.  The  theoretical  position  was 
that  the  Imam,  or  leader,  must  be  elected  by  the 
Muslim  community,  and  that  position  has  never,  the- 
oretically, been  abandoned.  Each  new  Ottoman 
sovereign  is  solemnly  elected  by  the  Ulama,  or  canon 
lawyers  and  divines  of  Constantinople.  His  tem- 
poral sovereignty  comes  by  blood  ;  in  bestowing  this 
spiritual  sovereignty  the  Ulama  act  as  representatives 
of  the  People  of  Muhammad.  Thus  the  theoretical 
position  was  liable  to  much  modification  in  practice. 
The  Muslim  community  resolves  itself  into  the  people 
of  the  capital ;  still  further,  into  the  body-guard  of 
the  dead  Khalifa  ;  and,  finally,  as  now,  into  the  pe- 
culiar custodians  of  the  Faith.  Among  the  Ibadites 
the  position  from  the  first  seems  to  have  been  that 
only  those  learned  in  the  law  should  act  as  electors. 
Along  with  this,  the  doctrine  developed  that  it  was 


CONSTITUTIONAL  QUESTION    OF  TO-DAY        55 

the  duty  of  the  people  to  recognize  imfait  accomiM 
and  to  do  homage  to  a  successful  usurj^er — until 
another  more  successful  should  appear.  They  had 
learned  that  it  was  better  to  have  a  bad  ruler  than  no 
ruler  at  all.  This  was  the  end  of  the  democracy  of 
Islam. 

Finally,  it  may  be  well  to  give  some  account  of  the 
constitutional  question  as  it  exists  at  the  present  day. 
The  greatest  of  the  Sultans  of  Islam  is  undoubtedly 
the  Emperor  of  India.  Under  his  rule  are  far  more 
Muslims  than  fall  to  any  other.  But  the  theory  of 
the  Muslim  State  never  contemplated  the  possibility 
of  Muslims  living  under  the  rule  of  an  unbeliever. 
For  them,  the  world  is  divided  into  two  parts,  the 
one  is  Dar  al-lslam,  abode  of  Islam ;  and  the  other 
is  Dar  al-liarh,  abode  of  war.  In  the  end,  Dar  al- 
harb  must  disappear  into  Dar  al-Islam  and  the  whole 
world  be  Muslim.  These  names  indicate  with  suf- 
ficient clearness  what  the  Muslim  attitude  is  toward 
non-Muslims.  It  is  still  a  moot  point  among  canon 
lawyers,  however,  whether  Jihad,  or  holy  war,  may 
be  made,  unprovoked,  upon  any  Dar  al-Jiarh.  One 
thing  is  certain,  there  must  be  a  reasonable  prospect 
of  success  to  justify  any  such  movement ;  the  lives  of 
Muslims  must  not  be  thrown  away.  Further,  the 
necessity  of  the  case — in  India,  especially — has 
brought  up  the  doctrine  that  any  country  in  which 
the  peculiar  usages  of  Islam  are  protected  and  its 
injunctions — even  some  of  them — followed,  must  be 
regarded  as  Dar  al -Islam  and  that  Jihad  within  its 
borders  is  forbidden.  We  may  doubt,  however,  if 
this  doctrine  would  hold  back  the  Indian  Muslims  to 


56  CONSTITUTIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

any  extent  if  a  good  opportunity  for  a  Jihad  really 
presented  itself.  The  Blii'ites,  it  may  be  remarked, 
cannot  enter  upon  a  Jihad  at  all  until  the  Hidden 
Imam  returns  and  leads  their  armies. 

Again  the  two  signs  of  sovereignty  for  Muslims  are 
that  the  name  of  the  sovereign  should  be  on  the 
coinage  and  that  he  should  be  prayed  for  in  the  Friday 
sermon  (khutba).  In  India,  the  custom  seems  to  be  to 
pray  for  "  the  ruler  of  the  age  "  without  name  ;  then 
each  worshipper  can  apply  it  as  he  chooses.  But 
there  has  crept  in  a  custom  in  a  few  mosques  of  pra}-- 
ing  for  the  Ottoman  Sultan  as  the  Khalifa  ;  the  Eng- 
lish government  busies  itself  little  with  these  things 
until  compelled,  and  the  custom  will  doubtless  spread. 
The  Ottoman  Sultan  is  certainly  next  greatest  to  the 
Emperor  of  India  and  would  seem,  as  a  Muslim  ruling 
Muslims,  to  have  an  unassailable  position.  But  in 
his  case  also  difficult  and  ambiguous  constitutional 
questions  can  be  raised.  He  has  claimed  the  Khali- 
fate,  as  we  have  seen,  since  1538,  but  the  claim  is  a 
shaky  one  and  brings  awkward  responsibilities.  As 
stated  at  the  present  day,  it  has  five  grounds.  First, 
de  facto  right;  the  Ottoman  Sultan  won  his  title  by 
the  sword  and  holds  it  by  the  sword.  Second,  elec- 
tion ;  this  form  has  been  already  described.  Third, 
nomination  by  the  last  Abbasid  Khalifa  of  Egjq^t ; 
so  Abu  Bakr  nominated  Umar  to  succeed  him,  and 
precedent  is  everything  in  Islam.  Fourth,  possession 
and  guardianship  of  the  two  Harams,  or  Sacred  Cit- 
ies, Mecca  and  al-Madina.  Fifth,  possession  of  some 
relics  of  the  Prophet  saved  from  the  sack  of  Baglidad 
and  delivered  to  Sultan  Salim,  on  his  conquest  of 


THEORIES   OF   THE  KHALIFATE  67 

Egypt,  by  the  last  Abbasid.  But  these  all  shatter 
agaiust  the  fixed  fact  that  absolutely  accepted  tradi- 
tions from  the  Prophet  assert  that  the  Khalifa  must 
be  of  the  family  of  Quraysh ;  so  long  as  there  are 
two  left  of  that  tribe,  one  must  be  Khalifa  and  the 
other  his  helper.  Still,  here,  as  everywhere,  the 
principal  of  Ijma,  Agreement  of  the  Muslim  peo- 
ple, (see  p.  105)  comes  in  and  must  be  reckoned 
with.  These  very  traditions  are  probably  an  expres- 
sion in  concrete  form  of  popular  agreement.  The 
Khalifate  itself  is  confessedly  based  upon  agreement. 
The  canon  lawyers  state  the  case  thus  :  The  Imamites 
and  Isma'ilians  hold  that  the  appointment  of  a  leader 
is  incumbent  upon  God.  There  is  only  the  difference 
that  the  Imamites  say  that  a  leader  is  necessary  in 
order  to  maintain  the  laws  unimpaired,  while  the 
Isma'ilians  regard  him  as  essential  in  order  to  give 
instruction  about  God.  The  Kharijites,  on  the  other 
hand,  recognize  no  fundamental  need  of  an  Imam ; 
he  is  only  allowable.  Some  of  them  held  that  he 
should  be  appointed  in  time  of  public  trouble  to  do 
away  with  the  trouble,  thus  a  kind  of  dictator ;  others, 
in  time  of  peace,  because  only  then  can  the  people 
agree.  The  Mu'tazilites  and  the  Zaydites  held  that 
it  was  for  man  to  appoint,  but  that  the  necessity  was 
based  on  reason ;  men  needed  such  a  leader.  Yet 
some  Mu'tazilites  taught  that  the  basis  was  partly 
reason  and  partly  obedience  to  tradition.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Sunnites  hold  that  the  appointment 
of  an  Imam  is  incumbent  upon  men  and  that  the 
basis  is  obedience  to  the  tradition  of  the  Agreement 
of  the  Muslim  world  from  the  earliest  times.     The 


68  CONSTITUTIONAL   DEVELOPMENT 

community  of  Islam  may  have  disputed  over  tlie  in- 
dividual to  be  appointed,  but  tliey  never  doubted 
that  the  maintenance  of  the  faith  in  its  purity  re- 
quired a  leader,  and  that  it  was,  therefore,  incumbent 
on  men  to  appoint  one.  The  basis  is  Ijma,  Agree- 
ment, not  Scripture  or  tradition  from  Muhammad  or 
analogy  based  on  these  two. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  that  the  de  facto  ground 
to  the  claim  of  the  Ottoman  Sultan  is  the  best.  The 
Muslim  community  must  have  a  leader ;  this  is  the 
greatest  Muslim  ruling  Muslims  ;  he  claims  the  lead- 
ership and  holds  it.  If  the  English  rule  were  to  be- 
come Muslim,  the  Muslims  would  rally  to  it.  The 
ground  of  election  amounts  to  nothing,  the  nomina- 
tion to  little  more,  except  for  antiquarians ;  the 
possession  of  the  Prophetic  relics  is  a  sentiment  that 
would  have  weight  with  the  crowd  only;  no  canon 
lawyer  w^ould  seriously  urge  it.  The  guardianship  of 
the  two  Harams  is  precarious.  A  Turkish  reverse  in 
Syria  would  withdraw  every  Turkish  soldier  from 
Arabia  and  the  great  Sharif  families  of  Mecca,  all  of 
the  blood  of  the  Prophet,  would  proclaim  a  Khalifa 
from  among  themselves.  At  present,  only  the  Turk- 
ish garrison  holds  them  in  check. 

But  a  Khalifa  has  responsibilities.  He  absolutely 
cannot  become  a  constitutional  monarch  in  our  sense. 
He  rules  under  law — divine  law — and  the  people  can 
depose  him  if  he  breaks  it ;  but  he  cannot  set  up 
beside  himself  a  constitutional  assembly  and  give  it 
rights  against  himself.  He  is  the  successor  of  Mu- 
hammad and  must  rule,  within  limitations,  as  an  ab- 
solute monarch.     So  impossible  is  the  modern  Khali- 


PAN-ISLAMISM  59 

fate,  and  so  gigantic  are  its  responsibilities.  The 
millions  of  Chinese  Muslims  look  to  him  and  all 
Muslims  of  central  Asia ;  the  Muslims  of  India  who 
are  not  Shi'ite  also  look  to  him.  So,  too,  in  Africa 
and  wherever  in  the  world  the  People  of  Muhammad 
have  gone,  their  eyes  turn  to  the  Bosphorus  and  the 
Great  Sultan.  This  is  what  has  been  called  the 
modern  Pan-Islamic  movement ;  it  is  a  modern  fact. 

The  position  of  the  other  Muslim  sects  we  have 
already  seen.  Of  Shi'ite  rulers,  there  are  the  Imam- 
ites  in  Persia;  scattered  Zaydites  still  in  south  Arabia 
and  fugitive  in  Africa ;  strange  secret  bodies  of  Isma- 
'ilians — Druses,  Nusayrites,  Assassins — still  holding 
their  own  in  mountain  recesses,  forgotten  by  the 
world ;  oldest  of  all,  the  Sharif s  of  Morocco,  who  are 
Sunnites  and  antedate  all  theological  differences,  hold- 
ing only  by  the  blood  of  the  Prophet.  At  Zanzibar, 
Uman  and  the  Mzab  in  Algeria  are  the  descendants 
of  the  Kharijites.  Probably,  somewhere  or  other, 
there  are  some  fossilized  descendants  of  every  sect 
that  has  ever  arisen,  either  to  trouble  the  peace  of 
Islam  or  to  save  it  from  scholastic  decrepitude  and 
death.  Insurrections  and  heresies  have  their  own 
uses. 

It  only  remains  to  make  mention  of  two  modern 
movements  which  have  deeply  affected  the  Islam  of 
to-day.  The  Pan-Islamic  movement,  noticed  above, 
strives  as  much  as  anything  to  bring  the  Muslim 
world  into  closer  touch  with  the  science  and  thought 
of  the  Christian  world,  ralljang  all  the  Muslim  peo- 
ples at  the  same  time  round  the  Ottoman  Sultan  as 
their  sj^iritual  head  and  holding  fast  by  the  kernel  of 


60  CONSTITUTIONAL  DEVELOPMENT 

Islam.  It  is  a  reform  movement  whose  treud  is  for- 
ward. The  other  two,  to  which  we  now  come,  are 
reform  movements  also,  but  their  trend  is  backward. 
They  look  to  the  good  old  days  of  early  Islam  and 
try  to  restore  them. 

The  first  is  that  of  the  Wahhabites,  so  called  from 
Muhammad  ibn  Abd  al-Wahhab  (Slave  of  the  Boun- 
tiful), its  founder,  a  native  of  Najd  in  central  Arabia, 
who  died  in  1787.  His  aim  w^as  to  bring  Islam 
back  to  its  primitive  parity  and  to  do  away  with  all 
the  usages  and  beliefs  which  had  arisen  to  cloud  its 
absolute  monotheism.  But  attempts  at  reformation 
in  Islam  have  never  led  to  anything  but  the  founding 
of  new  dynasties.  They  may  begin  with  a  saintly 
reformer,  but  in  the  first  or  the  second  generation 
there  is  sure  to  come  the  conquering  disciple ;  relig- 
ion and  rule  go  together,  and  he  who  meddles  with 
the  one  must  next  grasp  at  the  other.  The  third 
stage  is  the  extinction  of  the  new  dynasty  and  the 
vanishing  of  its  party  into  a  more  or  less  secret  sect, 
the  vitality  of  which  is  again  directed  into  religious 
channels.  The  Wahhabites  were  no  exception.  Their 
rule  extended  from  the  Persian  Gulf  to  the  Bed  Sea, 
touched  al-Yaman  and  Hadramawt  and  included  some 
districts  of  the  Pashalik  of  Baghdad.  That  was  early 
in  the  nineteenth  century ;  but  now,  after  many  dy- 
nastic changes,  the  rule  of  the  Wahhabites  proper 
has  almost  ceased,  although  the  Turks  have  not 
gained  any  new  footing  in  Najd.  There,  a  native 
Arab  dynasty  has  sprung  up  which  is  free  from  Turk- 
ish control  in  every  respect,  and  has  its  seat  in  Ha'il. 
But  the   zeal  of  the  Wahhabites  gave  an  impulse  to 


BROTHERHOOD   OF   AS-SANUSI  61 

reform  in  the  general  body  of  Muslims  wliicli  is  not 
yet,  by  any  means,  extinct.  Especially  in  India, 
their  views  have  been  widely  spread  by  missionaries, 
and  at  one  time  there  was  grave  fear  of  a  Wahhabite 
insurrection.  But  dead  parties  in  Islam  seldom  rise 
again,  and  the  life  of  Wahhabism  has  passed  into  the 
Muslim  Church  as  a  whole.  Politically  it  has  failed, 
but  the  spirit  of  reform  remains  and  has  undoubt- 
edly influenced  the  second  reform  movement  to  which 
we  now  come. 

That  is  the  Brotherhood  of  as-Sanusi,  founded  in 
1837  by  Muhammad  ibn  Ali  as-Sanusi  in  order  to  re- 
form and  spread  the  faith.  The  tendency  to  organ- 
ize has  always  been  strong  among  Orientals,  and  in 
Islam  itself  there  have  risen,  as  we  have  seen,  from 
the  earliest  times,  secret  societies  for  conspiracy  and 
insurrection.  But  apart  from  these  dubious  organi- 
zations, religious  feeling  has  also  expressed  itself  in 
brotherhoods  closely  corresponding  to  the  monastic 
orders  of  Europe,  except  that  they  were,  and  are, 
self-governing  and  under  no  relations  but  those  of 
sentiment  to  the  head  of  the  Muslim  Faith.  Rather, 
these  orders  of  darwishes  have  been  inclined  toward 
heresies  of  a  mystical  and  pantheistic  type  more 
than  toward  the  development  and  support  of  the 
severely  scholastic  theology  of  orthodox  Islam.  This 
is  a  side  of  Muhammadanism  with  which  we  shall 
have  to  deal  in  some  detail  hereafter.  In  the  mean- 
time, it  is  enough  to  say  that  the  Brotherhood  of 
as-Sanusi  is  one  of  the  orders  of  darwashes,  but 
distinguished  from  all  its  predecessors  in  its  severely 
reforming  and  puritanic  character.     It  has  taken  up 


62  CONSTITUTIONAL  DEVELOPMENT 

the  task  of  the  Wahhabites  and  is  working  out  the 
same  problem  in  a  rather  different  way.  Its  princi- 
ples are  of  the  strictest  monotheism  ;  all  usages  and 
ideas  that  do  not  accord  with  their  views  of  the  exact 
letter  of  the  Qur'an  are  prohibited.  The  present  head 
of  the  Brotherhood,  the  son  of  the  founder,  who  him- 
self died  in  1859,  claims  to  be  the  Mahdi  and  has  es- 
tablished a  theocratic  state  at  Jarabub,  in  the  eastern 
Sahara,  between  Egypt  and  Tripolis.  The  mother 
house  of  the  order  is  there,  and  from  it  missionaries 
have  gone  out  and  established  other  houses  through- 
out all  north  Africa  and  Morocco  and  far  into  the 
interior.  The  Head  himself  has  of  late  retreated 
farther  into  the  desert.  There  is  also  an  important 
centre  at  Mecca,  where  the  pilgrims  and  the  Bedawis 
are  initiated  into  the  order  in  great  numbers.  From 
Mecca  these  brethren  return  to  their  homes  all  over 
the  Muslim  world,  and  the  order  is  said  to  be  especially 
popular  in  the  Malay  Archipelago.  So  there  has 
sprung  up  in  Islam,  in  tremendous  ramifications,  an 
imperium  in  imperio.  All  the  brethren  in  all  the  de- 
grees— for,  just  as  in  the  monastic  orders  of  Europe, 
there  are  active  members  and  lay  members — reverence 
and  pay  blind  obedience  to  the  Head  in  his  inacces- 
sible oasis  in  the  African  desert.  There  he  works 
toward  the  end,  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  what 
that  end  will  be.  Sooner  or  later  Europe — in  the 
first  instance,  England  in  Egypt  and  France  in 
Algeria — will  have  to  face  the  bursting  of  this  storm. 
For  this  Mahdi  is  different  from  him  of  Khartum  and 
the  southern  Sudan  in  that  he  knows  how  to  rule  and 
wait ;  for  years  he  has  gathered  arms  and  munitions, 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  FUTURE        63 

and  trained  men  for  the  great  Jihad.  When  his  plans 
are  ready  and  his  time  is  come,  a  new  chapter  will  be 
opened  in  the  history  of  Islam,  a  chapter  which  will 
cast  into  forgetfulness  even  the  recent  volcanic  out- 
burst in  China.  It  will  then  be  for  the  Ottoman 
Sultan  of  the  time  to  show  what  he  and  his  Khalifate 
are  worth.  He  will  have  to  decide  whether  he  will 
throw  in  his  lot  with  a  Mahdi  of  the  old  Islam  and 
the  dream  of  a  Muslim  millennium,  or  boldly  turn  to 
new  things  and  carry  the  Successorship  and  the 
People  of  Muhammad  to  join  the  civilized  world. 


PART  II 


CHAPTEK  I 


The  scope  of  jurisprudence  among  Muslims  ;  the  earliest  elements 
in  it,  Arab  custom,  Jewish  law,  personality  of  Muhammad ; 
his  attitude  toward  law ;  elements  after  death  of  Muhammad  ; 
Qur'an,  Usage  of  the  Prophet,  common  law  of  al-Madina; 
conception  of  Simna  before  Muhammad  and  after;  traditions 
and  their  transmission ;  traditions  in  book  form ;  influence  of 
Umayyads ;  forgery  of  traditions ;  the  3fuivatta  of  IVIalik  ibn 
Anas;  the  Musnad  of  Ahmad  ibn  Hanbal;  the  musaiuiafs ; 
al-Bukhari;  Muslim;  Ibn  Maja;  at-Tirmidhi ;  an-Xasa'i ;  al- 
Baghawi ;  the  problem  of  the  Muslim  lawyers ;  their  sources ; 
Koman  law ;  the  influence  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Responsa  pru- 
dentium ;  Opinion  in  Islam ;  the  Law  of  Nature  or  Equity  in 
Islam ;  istihsan  ;  istislah  ;  Analogy ;  the  patriarchal  period  in 
Islam ;  the  Umayyad  period ;  the  growth  of  the  canon  law. 

In  tracing  tlie  development  of  Muslim  jurispru- 
dence few  of  the  difficulties  are  encountered  wliicli 
surrounded  Sir  Henry  Maine  wlien  lie  first  examined 
the  origins  and  history  of  European  law.  We  do  not 
need  to  push  our  researches  back  to  the  primitive 
famil}^,  nor  to  work  our  way  through  periods  of  cen- 
turies guided  by  the  merest  fragments  of  documents 
and  hints  of  usage.  Our  subject  was  born  in  the 
light  of  history ;  it  ran  its  course  in  a  couple  of  hun- 
dred  years  and  has   left  at  every  important  point 

65 


G6  DEVELOPMENT   OF   JURISPRUDENCE 

autlioritative  evidences  of  its  whence,  its  how,  and  its 
whither.  Our  difficulties  are  different,  but  sufficiently 
great.  Shortly,  they  are  two.  The  mass  of  material 
is  overpowering  ;  the  strangeness  of  the  ideas  involved 
is  perplexing.  The  wealth  of  material  will  become 
plain,  to  some  extent  at  least,  as  the  history  is  traced ; 
but  for  the  strangeness  of  the  contents,  of  the  ar- 
rangement and  the  atmosphere  of  these  codes  some 
preparation  must  be  given  from  the  outset.  How, 
indeed,  can  we  meet  a  legal  code  which  knows  no 
distinction  of  personal  or  public,  of  civil  or  criminal 
law ;  which  prescribes  and  describes  the  use  of  the 
toothpick  and  decides  when  a  wedding  invitation  may 
be  declined,  which  enters  into  the  minutest  and  most 
unsavory  details  of  family  life  and  lays  down  rules  of 
religious  retreat  ?  Is  it  by  some  subtle  connection  of 
thought  that  the  chapter  on  oaths  and  vows  follows 
immediately  that  on  horse-racing,  and  a  section  on 
the  building  line  on  a  street  is  inserted  in  a  chapter 
on  bankruptcy  and  composition  ?  One  thing,  at  least, 
is  abundantly  clear.  Muslim  law,  in  the  most  abso- 
lute sense,  fits  the  old  definition,  and  is  the  science  of 
all  things,  human  and  divine.  It  tells  what  we  must 
render  to  Caesar  and  what  to  God,  what  to  ourselves, 
and  what  to  our  fellows.  The  bounds  of  the  Platonic 
definition  of  rendering  to  each  man  his  due  it  utterly 
shatters.  While  Muslim  theology  defines  everything 
that  a  man  shall  believe  of  things  in  heaven  and  in 
earth  and  beneath  the  earth — and  this  is  no  flat  rhet- 
oric— Muslim  law  prescribes  everything  that  a  man 
shall  do  to  God,  to  his  neighbor,  and  to  himself.  It 
takes  all  duty  for  its  portion  and  defines  all  action  in 


SCOPE   OF   MUSLIM    LAW  67 

terms  of  duty.  Nothing  can  escape  the  narrow  meshes 
of  its  net.  One  of  the  greatest  legists  of  Islam  never 
ate  a  watermelon  because  he  could  not  find  that  the 
usage  of  the  Prophet  had  laid  down  and  sanctioned  a 
canonical  method  of  doing  so. 

It  will,  therefore,  be  well  for  the  student  to  work 
through  the  sketch  of  a  code  of  Muslim  law  which  is 
inserted  in  Appendix  I.  One  has  been  chosen  which 
belongs  to  the  school  of  ash-Shafi'i  because  of  its  gen- 
eral accessibility.  It  should  be  remembered  that 
what  is  given  is  the  merest  table  of  contents.  The 
standard  Arabic  commentary  on  the  book  extends  to 
eight  hundred  and  eleven  closely  printed  quarto 
pages.  Even  a  mere  reading  of  this  table  of  contents, 
however,  will  show  in  how  different  a  sphere  of  thought 
from  ours  Muslim  law  moves  and  lives.  But  we  must 
return  to  the  beginning  of  things,  to  the  egg  from 
which  this  tremendous  system  was  hatched. 

The  mother-city  of  Islam  was  the  little  town  of 
Yathrib,  called  Madinat  an-Nabi,  the  City  of  the 
Prophet,  or,  shortly,  al-Madina,  ever  since  the  Hijra 
or  Migration  of  Muhammad  to  it  in  the  year  622  of 
the  Christian  era.  Here  the  first  Muslim  state  was 
founded,  and  the  germinal  principles  of  Muslim  juris- 
prudence fixed.  Both  state  and  jurisprudence  were 
the  result  of  the  inter-working  of  the  same  highly 
complicated  causes.  The  ferments  in  the  case  may 
be  classified  and  described  as  follows  :  First,  in  the 
town  itself  before  the  appearance  of  Muhammad  on 
its  little  stage — little,  but  so  momentous  for  the 
future — there  were  two  parties,  often  at  war,  oftener 
at  peace.     There  was  a  genuine  Arab  element  and 


68  DEVELOPMENT   OF   JURISPRUDENCE 

there  was  a  large  settlement  of  Jews.  To  tlie  Arabs 
any  conception  of  law  was  utterly  foreign.  An  Arab 
tribe  has  no  constitution ;  its  system  is  one  of  in- 
dividualism ;  the  siDgle  man  is  a  sovereign  and  no 
writ  can  lie  against  him  ;  the  tribe  can  cast  him  forth 
from  its  midst ;  it  cannot  otherwise  coerce  him.  So 
stands  the  case  now  in  the  desert,  and  so  it  was  then. 
Some  slight  hold  there  might  be  on  the  tribe  through 
the  fear  of  the  tribal  God,  but  on  the  individual  Arab, 
always  a  somewhat  cynical  sceptic,  that  hold  was  of 
the  slightest.  Further,  the  avenging  of  a  broken 
oath  was  left  to  the  God  that  had  witnessed  the  oath ; 
if  he  did  not  care  to  right  his  client,  no  one  else  would 
interfere.  There  was  customary  law,  undoubtedly, 
but  it  was  protected  by  no  sanction  and  enforced  by 
no  authority.  If  both  parties  chose  to  invoke  it, 
well;  if  not,  neither  had  anything  to  fear  but  the 
anger  of  his  opponent.  That  law  of  custom  we  shall 
find  again  appearing  in  the  system  of  Islam,  but  there 
it  will  be  backed  by  the  sanction  of  the  wrath  of  God 
working  through  the  authority  of  the  state.  The  Jew- 
ish element  was  in  a  different  case.  They  may  have 
been  Jewish  immigrants,  they  may  have  been  Jewish 
proselytes — many  Arab  tribes,  we  know,  had  gone 
over  bodily  to  Judaism — but  their  lives  were  ruled 
and  guided  by  Jewish  law.  To  the  primitive  and 
divine  legislation  on  Sinai  there  was  an  immense  ac- 
cretion by  legal  fiction  and  by  usage ;  the  Koman 
codes  had  left  their  mark  and  the  customary  law  of 
the  desert  as  well.  All  this  was  working  in  the  life 
of  the  town  when  Muhammad  and  his  little  band  of 
fugitives  from  Mecca  entered  it.      Being  Meccans, 


MUHAMMAD    AS   A   LEGISLATOR  69 

they  must  have  brought  with  them  the  more  devel- 
oped legal  ideas  of  that  trading  centre;  but  these 
were  of  comparatively  little  account  in  the  scale.  The 
new  and  dominating  element  was  the  personality  of 
Muhammad  himself.  His  contribution  was  legisla- 
tion pure  and  simple,  the  only  legislation  that  has 
ever  been  in  Islam.  Till  his  death,  ten  years  later, 
he  ruled  his  community  as  an  absolute  monarch,  as  a 
prophet  in  his  own  right.  He  sat  in  the  gate  and 
judged  the  people.  He  had  no  need  of  a  code,  for 
his  own  will  was  enough.  He  followed  the  custom- 
ary laAV  of  the  town,  as  it  has  been  described  above, 
when  it  suited  him,  and  when  he  judged  that  it  was 
best.  If  not,  he  left  it  and  there  was  a  revelation. 
So  the  legislative  part  of  the  Qur'an  grew  out  of  such 
scraps  sent  down  out  of  heaven  to  meet  the  needs  of 
the  squabbles  and  questions  of  the  townsfolk  of  al- 
Madina.  The  system  was  one  of  pure  opportunism ; 
but  of  what  body  of  legislation  can  that  not  be  said  ? 
Of  course,  on  the  one  hand,  not  all  decisions  were 
backed  by  a  revelation,  and  Muhammad  seems,  on  the 
other,  to  have  made  a  few  attempts  to  deal  system- 
atically with  certain  standing  and  constantly  recur- 
ring problems — such,  for  example,  as  the  conflicting 
claims  of  heirs  in  an  estate,  and  the  whole  compli- 
cated question  of  divorce— but  in  general,  the  position 
holds  that  Muhammad  as  a  lawyer  lived  from  hand 
to  mouth.  He  did  not  draw  up  any  twelve  tables  or 
ten  commandments,  or  code,  or  digest ;  he  was  there 
and  the  people  could  come  and  ask  him  questions 
when  they  chose,  and  that  was  enough.  The  concep- 
tion of  a  rounded  and  complete  system  which  will 


70  DEVELOPMENT   OF   JURISPRUDENCE 

meet  any  case  and  to  which  all  cases  must  be  ad- 
justed by  legal  fiction  or  equity,  the  conception 
which  we  owe  to  the  genius  and  experience  of  the 
Roman  lawyers,  was  foreign  to  his  thought.  From 
time  to  time  he  got  into  difficulties.  A  revelation 
proved  too  wide  or  too  narrow,  or  left  out  some  im- 
portant possibility.  Then  there  came  another  to 
supplement  or  correct,  or  even  to  set  the  first  quite 
aside — Muhammad  had  no  scruples  about  progressive 
revelation  as  applied  to  himself.  Thus,  through  these 
interpretive  acts,  as  we  may  call  them,  many  flat  con- 
tradictions have  come  into  the  Qur'an  and  have  proved 
the  delight  of  generations  of  Muslim  jurisconsults. 

Such,  then,  was  the  state  of  things  legal  in  al- 
Madina  during  the  ten  years  of  Muhammad's  rule 
there  until  his  death  in  a.d.  632.  Of  law  there  was, 
strictly  speaking,  none.  In  his  decisions,  Muham- 
mad could  follow  certainly  the  customary  law  of  the 
town ;  but  to  do  so  there  was  no  necessity  upon  him 
other  than  prudence,  for  his  authority  was  absolute. 
Yet  even  with  such  authority  and  such  freedom,  his 
task  was  a  hard  one.  The  Jews,  the  native  Arabs  of 
al-Madina,  and  his  fellow  fugitives  from  Mecca  lived 
in  more  or  less  of  friction.  He  had  to  see  to  it  that  his 
decisions  did  not  bring  that  friction  to  the  point  of 
throwing  the  whole  community  into  a  flame.  The 
Jews,  it  is  true,  were  soon  eliminated,  but  the  influ- 
ence of  their  law  lasted  in  the  customary  law  of  the 
town  long  after  they  themselves  had  become  insig- 
nificant. Still,  with  all  this,  the  suitor  before  Mu- 
hammad had  no  certainty  on  what  basis  his  claims 
would  be  judged  ;  whether  it  would  be  the  old  law  of 


qur'an;  usage  of  muiiammad  71 

the  town,  or  a  roiigli  equity  based  on  Muhammad's 
own  ideas,  or  a  special  revelation  ad  hoc.  So  far, 
then,  we  may  be  said  to  have  the  three  elements — 
common  law,  equity,  legislation.  Legal  fiction  we 
shall  meet  later;  Muhammad  had  no  need  of  it. 

But  with  the  death  of  Muhammad  in  a.d.  632  the 
situation  was  completely  changed.  We  can  now  speak 
of  Muslim  law  ;  legislation  plays  no  longer  any  part ; 
the  process  of  collecting,  arranging,  correlating,  and 
developing  has  begun.  Consider  the  situation  as  it 
must  have  presented  itself  to  one  of  the  immediate 
successors  of  Muhammad,  as  he  sat  in  his  place  and 
judged  the  people.  When  a  case  came  up  for  deci- 
sion, there  were  several  sources  from  which  a  law  in 
point  might  be  drawn.  First  among  them  was  the 
Qur'an.  It  had  been  collected  from  the  fragmentary 
state  in  which  Muhammad  had  left  it  by  Abu  Bakr, 
his  first  Khalifa,  some  two  years  after  his  death. 
Again,  some  ten  years  later,  it  was  revised  and  given 
forth  in  a  final  public  recension  by  Uthman,  the  third 
Khalifa.  This  was  the  absolute  word  of  God — 
thoughts  and  language — and  stood  and,  in  theory, 
still  stands  first  of  all  sources  for  theology  and  law. 
If  it  contained  a  law  clearly  applying  to  the  case  in 
hand,  there  was  no  more  to  be  said  ;  divine  legisla- 
tion had  settled  the  matter.  If  not,  recourse  was 
next  had  to  the  decisions  of  the  Prophet.  Had  a 
similar  one  come  before  him,  and  how  had  he  ruled? 
If  the  memories  of  the  Companions  of  the  Prophet, 
the  Sahibs,  could  adduce  nothing  similar  from  one  of 
his  decisions,  then  the  judge  had  to  look  further  for 
an  authority.     But  the  decisions  of  Muhammad  had 


N. 


72     DEVELOPMENT  OF  JURISPRUDENCE 

been  many,  the  memories  of  his  Companions  were 
capacious,  and  possessed  further,  as  we  must  recog- 
nize with  regret,  a  constructive  power  that  helped 
the  early  judges  of  Islam  out  of  many  close  corners. 
But  if  tradition  even — true  or  false— finally  failed,  then 
the  judge  fell  back  on  the  common  law  of  al-Madina, 
that  customary  law  already  mentioned.  When  that, 
too,  failed,  the  last  recourse  was  had  to  the  common- 
sense  of  the  judge — roughly,  what  we  would  call 
equity.  At  the  beginning,  therefore,  of  Muslim 
law,  it  had  the  following  sources — legislation,  the 
usage  of  Muhammad,  the  usage  of  al-Madina, 
equity.  Naturally,  as  time  went  on  and  the  figure  of 
the  founder  drew  back  and  became  more  obscure 
and  more  venerated,  equity  fell  gradually  into  dis- 
use ;  a  closer  search  was  made  for  decisions  of  that 
founder  which  could  in  any  way  be  pressed  into  ser- 
vice; a  method  of  analogy,  closely  allied  to  legal 
fiction,  was  built  up  to  assist  in  this,  and  the  devel- 
opment of  Muslim  jurisprudence  as  a  system  and  a 
science  was  fairly  begun.  Further,  in  later  times,  the 
decisions  of  the  first  four  Khalifas  and  the  agree- 
ment {ijmn)  of  the  immediate  Companions  of  Mu- 
hammad came  to  assume  an  importance  only  second 
to  that  of  Muhammad  himself.  Later  still,  as  a  re- 
sult of  this,  the  opinion  grew  up  that  a  general  agree- 
ment of  the  jurisconsults  of  any  particular  time  was 
to  be  regarded  as  a  legitimate  source  of  law.  But 
we  must  return  to  consider  our  subject  more  broadly 
and  in  another  field. 

The  fact  has  already  been  brought   out  that  the 
sphere  of  law  is  much  wider  in  Islam  than  it  has  ever 


LEGAL   CLASSES   OF   ACTIONS  73 

been  witli  us.     By  it  all  the  minutest  acts  of  a  Mus- 
lim  are   guarded.     Europe,  also,  passed   tlirougli   a 
stage  similar  to  this  in  its  sumptuary  laws ;  and  the 
tendency  toward  inquisitorial  legislation  still  exists 
in  America,  but  not  even  the  most  medi?evally  mind- 
ed American  Western  State  has  ventured  to  put  upon 
its  statute-book  regulations  as  to  the  use  of  the  tooth- 
pick and  the  wash-cloth.     Thus,  the  Muslim  concep- 
tion of  law  is  so  wide  as  to  reach  essential  difference. 
A  Mushm  is  told  by  his  code  not  only  what  is  re- 
quired under  penalty,  but  also  what  is  either  recom- 
mended or  disliked  though  without  reward  or  penalty 
being  involved.     He  may  certainly  consult  his  law- 
yer, to  learn  how  near  the  wind  he  can  sail  without 
unpleasant  consequences;   but  he  may  also  consult 
him  as  his  spiritual  director  with  regard  to  the  rela- 
tive praiseworthiness  or  blameworthiness  of  classes 
of  actions  of  which  our  law  takes  no  cognizance.     In 
consequence,  actions  are   divided   by  Muslim   canon 
lawyers  (faqihs)  into  five  classes.     First,  necessary 
{fard  or  wajih);    a  duty  the  omission  of  which  is 
punished,    the   doing   rewarded.      Secondly,   recom 
mended   {manduh   or   mustahahh) ;   the   doing  is 
warded,  but  the  omission  is  not  punished.     Thirdly, 
permitted    {jciiz    or     muhali)  ;     legally    indifferent. 
Fourthly,   disliked    {inahncli)  ;    disapproved   by   the 
law,  but  not  under  penalty.     Fifthly,  forbidden  {ha- 
ram) ;  an  action  punishable  by  laAV.     All  this  being 
so,  it  will  be  easily  understood  that  the  record  of  the 
manners  and  customs  of  the  Prophet,  of  the  little  de- 
tails of  his  life  and  conversation,  came  to  assume  a 
high  importance.     Much  of  that  was  too  petty  ever 


re- 


74  DEVELOPMENT   OF  JURISPRUDENCE 

to  reacli  expression  iu  the  great  digests  of  law  ;  not 
even  the  most  zealous  fixer  of  life  by  rule  and  line 
would  condemn  his  fellow- religionist  because  he  pre- 
ferred to  carry  a  different  kind  of  walking-stick  from 
that  approved  by  the  Prophet,  or  found  it  fitting  to 
arrange  his  hair  in  a  different  way.  But  still,  all 
pious  Muslims  paid  attention  to  such  things,  and 
fenced  their  lives  about  with  the  strictest  Prophetic 
precedent.  In  consequence  of  this,  there  early  arose 
in  Islam  a  class  of  students  who  made  it  their  busi- 
ness to  investigate  and  hand  down  the  minutest  de- 
tails as  to  the  habits  of  Muhammad.  This  was  a 
separate  thing  from  the  study  of  law,  although  fated 
to  be  eventually  connected  with  it.  Even  in  the 
time  of  the  Jahiliya — the  period  before  Islam,  vari- 
ously explained  as  the  ignorance  or  as  the  rudeness, 
uncivilizedness — it  had  been  a  fixed  trait  of  the  Arab 
mind  to  hold  closely  to  old  paths.  An  inherent  con- 
servatism canonized  the  sunna — custom,  usage — of 
the  ancients ;  any  stepping  aside  from  it  was  a  hid'a 
— innovation — and  had  to  win  its  way  by  its  merits, 
in  the  teeth  of  strong  prejudice.  With  the  coming 
of  Muhammad  and  the  preaching  of  Islam,  this  an- 
cestral sunna  had  in  great  part  to  yield.  But  the 
temper  of  the  Arab  mind  remained  firm,  and  the 
sunna  of  Muhammad  took  its  place.  Pious  Muslims 
did  not  say,  "  Such  was  the  usage  of  our  fathers, 
and  it  is  mine ; "  but,  "  I  follow  the  usage  of  the 
Prophet  of  God."  Then,  just  as  the  old  sunna  of 
the  heathen  times  had  expressed  itself  through  the 
stories  of  great  Avarriors,  of  their  battles  and  loves ; 
through  anecdotes  of  wise  men,  and  their  keen  and 


SUNNA  ;   HADITH  75 

eloquent  words  ;  so  it  was  with  the  sunna  of  the  one 
man,  Muhammad.  What  he  said,  and  what  he  did ; 
what  he  refrained  from  doing  ;  what  he  gave  quasi- 
approval  to  by  silence ;  all  was  passed  on  in  rapidly 
increasing,  pregnant  little  narratives.  First,  his  im- 
mediate Companions  would  note,  either  by  commit- 
ting to  memory  or  to  a  written  record,  his  utterances 
and  table-talk  generally.  We  have  evidence  of  sev- 
eral such  Boswells,  who  fixed  his  words  as  they  fell. 
Later,  probably,  would  come  notes  of  his  doings  and 
his  customs,  and  of  all  the  little  and  great  happen- 
ings of  the  town.  Above  all,  a  record  was  being 
gathered  of  all  the  cases  judged  by  him,  and  of  his 
decisions  ;  of  all  the  answers  which  he  gave  to  for- 
mal questions  on  religious  life  and  faith.  All  this 
was  jotted  down  by  the  Companions  on  sahifas — odd 
sheets — just  as  they  had  done  in  the  Ignorance  with 
the  proverbs  of  the  wise  and  their  dark  sayings. 
The  records  of  sayings  were  called  haditJis  ;  the  rest, 
as  a  Avhole,  sunna — custom,  for  its  details  was  used 
the  plural,  sunan — customs.  At  first,  each  man  had 
his  own  collection  in  memory  or  in  writing.  Then, 
after  the  death  of  the  Prophet  and  when  his  first 
Companions  were  dropping  off,  these  collections 
were  passed  on  to  others  of  the  second  generation. 
And  so  the  chain  ran  on  and  in  time  a  tradition 
came  to  consist  formally  of  two  things — the  text  or 
matter  {main)  so  handed  on,  and  the  succession  {is- 
nad)  over  whose  lips  it  had  passed.  A  said,  "  There 
narrated  to  me  B,  saying,  '  There  narrated  to 
me  C,  saying,'  "  so  far  the  isnad,  until  the  last 
link  came,  and  the  main,  the  Prophet  of  God  said. 


76  DEVELOPMENT   OF   JURISPRUDENCE 

"Some  of  mj  injunctions  abrogate  others,"  or  "The 
Jann  were  created  of  a  smokeless  flame,"  or  what- 
ever it  might  be.     What  has  just  been  said  suggests 
that  it  was  at  first  indifferent  whether  traditions  were 
preserved  orally  or  in  writing.     That  is  true  of  the 
first  generation  ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  at  the 
same  time,  that  the  actual  passing  on  was  oral ;  the 
writing  merely  aided  the  memory  to  hold  that  which 
was  already  learned.     But  with  time,  and  certainly 
by  the  middle  of  the  second  century  of  the  Hijra,  two 
opposing  tendencies  in  this  respect  had  developed. 
Many  continued  to  put  their  trust   in  the  written 
word,  and  even  came  to  pass  traditions  on  without 
any  oral  communication.     But  for  others  there  lay 
grave  dangers  in  this.     One  was  evidently  real.     The 
unhappy  character  of  the  Arabic  script,  especially 
when  written  without  diacritical  points,  often  made 
it  hard,  if  not  practically  impossible,  to  understand 
such  short,   contextless  texts  as  the  traditions.     A 
guide  was  necessary  to  show  how  the  word  should  be 
read,  and  how  understood.     At  the  present  time  a 
European  scholar  will  sometimes  be  helpless  before 
even  a  fully  vocalized  text,  and  must  take  refuge  in 
native  commentaries  or  in  that  oral  tradition,  if  it 
still  exists  and  he  has  access  to  it,  which  supplies  at 
least  a  third   of   the  meaning   of   an    Arabic   book. 
Strengthening  this  came  theological  reasons.     The 
words  of  the  Prophet  would  be  profaned  if  they  were 
in  a  book.     Or,  again,  they  would  be  too  much  hon- 
ored   and    the    Quran   itself    might    be   neglected. 
This  last  fear  has  been  justified  to  a  certain  extent 
by  the  event.     On  these  grounds,  and  many  more, 


TRADITIONS    IN    LITERATURE  77 

the  writing  and  transmitting  in  writing  of  traditions 
came  to  be  fiercely  opposed  ;  and  tlie  opposition  con- 
tinued, as  a  theological  exercise,  long  after  many 
books  of  traditions  were  in  existence,  and  after  the 
oral  transmission  had  become  the  merest  farce  and 
had  even  frankly  dropped  out. 

It  is  to  the  formation  of  these  books  of  traditions, 
or,  as  we  might  say,  traditions  in  literature,  that  we 
must  now  turn.  For  long,  the  fragmentary  sahifas 
and  private  collections  made  by  separate  scholars  for 
their  own  use  sufficed.  Books  dealing  with  law 
(fiqii)  were  written  before  there  were  any  in  that 
department  of  literature  called  haditli.  The  cause  of 
this  is  tolerably  plain.  Law  and  treatises  of  law 
were  a  necessity  for  the  public  and  thus  were  encour- 
aged by  the  state.  The  study  of  traditions,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  less  essential  and  of  a  more  personal 
and  private  nature.  Further,  under  the  dynasty  of 
the  Umayyads,  who  reigned  from  a.h.  41  to  a.h.  132, 
theological  literature  was  little  encouraged.  They 
were  simple  heathen  in  all  but  name,  and  belonged, 
and  recognized  that  they  belonged,  not  to  Islam  but 
to  the  Jahiliya.  For  reasons  of  state,  they  encouraged 
and  spread^also  freely  forged  and  encouraged  others 
to  forge — such  traditions  as  were  favorable  to  their 
plans  and  to  their  rule  generally.  This  was  neces- 
sary if  they  were  to  carry  the  body  of  the  people  with 
them.  But  they  regarded  themselves  as  kings  and 
not  as  the  heads  of  the  MusHdi  people.  This  same 
device  has  been  used  after  them  by  all  the  contend- 
ing factions  of  Islam.  Each  party  has  sought  sanc- 
tion for  its  views  by  representing  them  in  traditions 


78     DEVELOPMENT  OF  JURISPRUDENCE 

from  the  Prophet,  and  the  thing  has  gone  so  far  that 
on  almost  every  disputed  point  there  are  absolutely 
conflicting  prophetic  utterances  in  circulation.  It 
has  even  been  held,  and  with  some  justification, 
that  the  entire  body  of  normative  tradition  at  present 
in  existence  was  forged  for  a  purpose.  With  this 
attitude  of  the  Umayyads  we  shall  have  to  deal  at 
greater  length  later.  It  is  sufficient  now  to  note  that 
the  first  real  appearance  of  hadith  in  literature  was 
in  the  3Iuivatta  of  Malik  ibn  Anas  who  died  in  a.h. 
179. 

Yet  even  this  appearance  is  not  so  much  of  hadith 
for  its  own  sake,  as  of  usages  bearing  upon  law  and 
of  the  law  that  can  be  drawn  from  these  usages. 
The  book  is  a  corpus  iuris  not  a  corpus  traditionwn. 
Its  object  was  not  so  much  to  separate  from  the  mass 
of  traditions  in  circulation  those  which  could  be  re- 
garded as  sound  of  origin  and  to  unite  them  in  a 
formal  collection,  as  to  build  up  a  system  of  law 
based  partly  on  tradition.  The  previous  works  deal- 
ing with  law  proper  had  been  of  a  speculative  char- 
acter, had  shown  much  subjective  reliance  on  their 
own  opinion  on  the  part  of  the  writers  and  had 
drawn  little  from  the  sacred  usage  of  the  Prophet 
and  quoted  few  of  his  traditional  sayings.  Against 
that  the  book  of  Malik  was  a  protest  and  formed  a 
link  between  such  law  books  pure  and  the  collections 
of  traditions  pure  with  which  we  now  come  to  deal. 

To  Malik  the  matn,  or  text,  of  a  tradition  had  been 
the  only  thing  of  importance.  To  the  is7iad,  or 
chain  of  authority  running  back  to  the  Prophet,  he 
had  paid  little  attention.     He,  as  we  have  seen,  was 


THE   MUSNADS  79 

a  lawyer  and  gathered  traditions,  not  for  their  own 
sake  but  to  use  them  in  law.  To  others,  the  tradition 
was  the  thing,  and  too  much  care  could  not  be  given 
to  its  details  and  its  authenticity.  And  the  care  was 
really  called  for.  With  the  course  of  time  and  the 
growing  demand,  the  supply  of  traditions  had  also 
grown  until  there  was  no  doubt  in  the  mind  of  any- 
one that  an  enormous  proportion  were  simple  foi'ger- 
ies.  To  weed  out  the  sound  ones,  attention  had  to 
be  given  to  the  isnad;  the  names  upon  it  had  to  be 
examined ;  the  fact  of  their  having  been  in  inter- 
course to  be  determined  ;  the  possibility  of  the  case 
in  general  to  be  tested.  Thus  there  w' ere  formed  real 
collections  of  supposedly  sound  traditions,  which 
were  called  3Iiisiiads,  because  each  tradition  was 
musnad — propped,  supported — against  the  Compan- 
ions from  w^hom  it  proceeded.  In  accordance  with 
this  also  they  were  arranged  according  to  the  Com- 
panions. After  the  name  of  the  Companion  were 
given  all  the  traditions  leading  back  to  him.  One  of 
the  earliest  and  greatest  of  these  books  w^as  the 
3Iusnad  of  Ahmad  ibn  Hanbal,  who  died  a.h.  241 ; 
of  him  more  hereafter.  This  book  has  been  printed 
recently  at  Cairo  in  six  quarto  volumes  of  2,885 
pages  and  is  said  to  contain  about  thirty  thousand 
traditions  going  back  to  seven  hundred  Companions. 
But  another  type  of  tradition-book  was  growing 
up,  less  mechanical  in  arrangement.  It  is  the  Mus- 
annaf,  the  arranged,  classified — and  in  it  the  tradi- 
tions are  arranged  in  chapters  according  to  their  sub- 
ject matter.  The  first  Musannafio  make  a  permanent 
mark    w^as   the    Sahih — sound — of    al-Bukhari,  who 


80      DEVELOPMENT  OF  JUEISPEUDENCE 

died  in  A.  H.  257.     It  is  still  extant  and  is  the  most 
respected  of  all  the  collections   of  traditions.     The 
principle  of  arrangement  in  it  is  legal ;  that  is,  the 
traditions  are  classified  in  these  chapters  so  as  to  af- 
ford bases  for  a  complete  system  of  jurisprudence. 
Al-Bukhari  was  a  strong  opponent  of  speculative  law 
and  his  book  was  thus  a  protest  against  a  tendency 
which,  as  we  shall  see  later,  was  strong  in  his  time. 
Another  point  in   which  al-Bukhari  made  his  influ- 
ence   felt   and   with   greater    effect,    was   increased 
severity  in  the  testing  of  traditions.     He  established 
very   strict  laws,  though  of  a  somewhat  mechanical 
kind,  and  was  most  scrupulous  in   applying  them. 
His  book  contains  about  seven  thousand  traditions, 
and  he  chose  those,  so  at  least  runs  the  story,  out  of 
six  hundred  thousand  which  he  found  in  circulation. 
The  rest  were  rejected  as  failing  to  meet  his  tests. 
How  far  the  forgery  of  traditions  had  gone  may  be 
seen  from  the  example  of  Ibn  Abi  AAvja,  who  was  exe- 
cuted in  A.H.  155,  and  who  confessed  that  he  had  him- 
self put  into  circulation  four  thousand  that  were  false. 
Another  and  a  similar  Saliih  is  that  of  Muslim,  who 
died  in  A.H.  261.     He  was  not  so  markedly  juristic 
as  al-Bukhari.     His  object  was  rather  to  purify  the 
mass  of  existing   tradition    from    illegitimate  accre- 
tions than  to   construct  a  basis  for  a  complete  law 
code.     He  has  prefixed  a  valuable  introduction  on  the 
science  of  tradition  generally.     In  some  shght  details 
his  principle  of  criticism   differed  from  that  of  al- 
Bukhari. 

These  tAVO  collections,  called  the  two  Sahihs — as- 
Sahihan—SLTe  technically  jami's,  i.e.  they  contain  all 


THE   SUNAN^  81 

the  different  classes  of  traditions,  historical,  ethical, 
dogmatic  and  legal.  They  have  also  come  to  be,  by 
common  agreement,  the  two  most  honored  authorities 
in  the  Muslim  world.  A  believer  finds  it  hard,  if  not 
impossible,  to  reject  a  tradition  that  is  found  in 
both. 

But  there  are  four  other  collections  which  are 
called  Sunan — Usages — and  which  stand  only  second 
to  the  two  Sahihs.  These  are  by  Ibn  Maja  (d.  303), 
Abu  Da'ud  as-Sijistani  (d.  275),  at-Tirmidhi  (d.  279) 
and  an-Nasa'i  (d.  303).  They  deal  almost  entirely  with 
legal  traditions,  those  that  tell  what  is  permitted  and 
what  is  forbidden,  and  do  not  convey  information  on 
religious  and  theological  subjects.  They  are  also 
much  more  lenient  in  their  criticisms  of  dubious  tra- 
ditions. To  work  exclusion  with  them,  the  rejection 
needed  to  be  tolerably  unanimous.  This  was  re- 
quired by  their  stand-point  and  endeavor,  which  was 
to  find  a  basis  for  all  the  minutest  developments  and 
details  of  jurisprudence,  civil  and  religious. 

These  six  books,  the  two  Sahihs  and  the  four 
Sunans,  came  to  be  regarded  in  time  as  the  principal 
and  all-important  sources  for  traditional  science. 
This  had  already  come  about  by  the  end  of  the  fifth 
century,  although  even  after  that  voices  of  uncer- 
tainty continued  to  make  themselves  heard.  Ibn 
Maja  seems  to  have  been  the  last  to  secure  firm  foot- 
ing, but  even  he  is  included  by  al-Baghawi  (d.  516) 
in  his  Blasahih  as-sunna,  an  attempted  epitome  into 
one  book  of  what  was  valuable  in  all.  Still,  long 
after  that,  Ibn  Khaldun,  the  great  historian  (d.  808), 
speaks  of  five  fundamental  works ;  and  others  speak  of 


82      DEVELOPMENT  OF  JURISPRUDENCE 

seven,  adding  the  MuivaUa  of  Malik  to  the  six  above. 
Others,  again,  especially  in  the  West,  extended  the 
number  of  canonical  works  to  ten,  though  with  vary- 
ing members;  but  all  these  must  be  regarded  as 
more  or  less  local,  temporary,  and  individual  eccen- 
tricities.    The   position   of  the  six  stands  tolerably 

firm. 

So  much  it  has  been  necessary  to  interpolate  and 
anticipate  with  regard  to  the  students  of  tradition 
whose  interest  lay  in  gathering  up  and  preserving, 
not  in  using  and  applying.  From  the  earliest  time, 
then,  there  existed  these  two  classes  in  the  bosom  of 
Islam,  students  of  tradition  proper  and  of  law  proper. 
For  long  they  did  not  clash ;  but  a  collision  was  in- 
evitable sooner  or  later. 

Yet,  if  the  circle  of  the  Muslim  horizon  had  not 
widened  beyond  the  little  market-town  of  al-Madina, 
that  collision  might  have  been  long  in  coming.  Its 
immediate  causes' were  from  without,  and  are  to  be 
found  in  the  wave  of  conquest  that  carried  Islam, 
within  the  century,  to  Samarqand  beyond  the  Oxus 
and  to  Tours  in  central  France.  Consider  what  that 
wave  of  conquest  was  and  meant.  Within  fourteen 
years  of  the  Hijra,  Damascus  was  taken,  and  within 
seventeen  years,  all  Syria  and  Mesopotamia.  By  the 
year  21,  the  Muslims  held  Persia ;  in  41  they  were  at 
Herat,  and  in  56  they  reached  Samarqand.  In  the 
West,  Egypt  was  taken  in  the  year  20 ;  but  the  way 
through  northern  Africa  was  long  and  hard.  Car- 
thage did  not  fall  till  74,  but  Spain  was  conquered 
with  the  fall  of  Toledo  in  93.  It  was  in  a.d.  732,  the 
year  of   the   Hijra  114,  that   the  wave  at  last   was 


EISE   OF   SPECULATIVE   JURISPRUDENCE        83 

turned  and  the  mercy  of  Tours  was  wrought  by 
Charles  the  Hammer;  but  the  Muslims  still  held 
Narbonne  and  raided  in  Burgundy  and  the  Dauphine. 
The  Avealth  that  flowed  into  Arabia  from  these  expe- 
ditions was  enormous ;  money  and  slaves  and  hixu- 
ries  of  every  kind  went  far  to  transform  the  old  life  of 
hardness  and  simplicity.  Great  estates  grew  up : 
fortunes  were  made  and  lost ;  the  intricacies  of  the 
Syrian  and  Persian  civilizations  overcame  their  con- 
querors. All  this  meant  new  legal  conditions  and 
problems.  The  system  that  had  sufficed  to  guard  the 
right  to  a  few  sheep  or  camels  had  to  be  transformed 
before  it  would  suffice  to  adjust  the  rights  and  claims 
of  a  tribe  of  millionnaires.  But  it  must  not  be 
thought  that  these  expeditions  were  only  campaigns 
of  plunder.  With  the  Muslim  armies  everywhere 
went  law  and  justice,  such  as  it  was.  Jurists  accom- 
panied each  army  and  were  settled  in  the  great  camp 
cities  which  were  built  to  hold  the  conquered  lands. 
Al-Basra  and  al-Kufa  and  Fustat,  the  parent  of  Cairo, 
owe  their  origin  to  this,  and  it  was  in  these  new  seats 
of  militant  Islam  that  speculative  juris j)rudence  arose 
and  moulded  the  Muslim  system. 

The  early  lawyers  had  much  to  do  and  much  to 
learn,  and  it  is  to  their  credit  that  they  recognized 
both  necessities.  Muslim  law  is  no  product  of  the 
desert  or  of  the  mind  of  Muhammad,  as  some  have 
said ;  but  rather  of  the  labor  of  these  men,  strug- 
gling with  a  gigantic  problem.  They  might  have 
taken  their  task  much  more  easily  than  they  did ; 
they  might  have  lived  as  Muhammad  had  done,  from 
hand  to  mouth,  and  have  concealed  their  own  sloth 


84  DEVELOPMENT   OF   JURISPRUDENCE 

by  force  and  free  invention  of  authorities.  But  they 
recognized  their  responsibility  to  God  and  man  and 
the  necessity  of  building  up  a  stable  and  complete 
means  of  rendering  justice.  These  armies  of  Mus- 
lims, we  must  remember,  were  not  like  the  hordes  of 
Attila  or  Chingis  Khan,  destroyers  only.  The  lands 
they  conquered  were  put  to  hard  tribute,  but  it  was 
under  a  reign  of  law.  They  recognized  frankly  that 
it  was  for  them  that  this  mighty  empire  existed ;  but 
they  recognized  also  that  it  could  continue  to  exist 
only  with  order  and  duty  imposed  upon  all.  They 
saw,  too,  how  deficient  was  their  own  knowledge  and 
learned  willingly  of  the  people  among  whom  they  had 
come.  And  here,  a  second  time,  Roman  law — the 
parent-law  of  the  world — made  itself  felt.  There 
were  schools  of  that  law  in  Syria  at  Ciesarea  and  Bey- 
rout,  but  we  need  not  imagine  that  the  Muslim  jurists 
studied  there.  Bather,  it  was  the  practical  school  of 
the  courts  as  they  actually  existed  -which  they  at- 
tended. These  courts  were  permitted  to  continue  in 
existence  till  Islam  had  learned  from  them  all  that 
was  needed.  We  can  still  recognize  certain  princi- 
ples that  were  so  carried  over.  That  the  duty  of 
proof  lies  upon  the  plaintiff,  and  the  right  of  defend- 
ing himself  with  an  oath  upon  the  defendant ;  the 
doctrine  of  invariable  custom  and  that  of  the  differ- 
ent kinds  of  legal  presumption.  These,  as  expressed 
in  Arabic,  are  almost  verbal  renderings  of  the  preg- 
nant utterances  of  Latin  law. 

But  most  important  of  all  was  a  liberty  suggested 
by  that  system  to  the  Muslim  jurisconsults.  This  was 
through  the  part  played  in  the  older  school  by  the 


RESPONSA   PRUDENTIUM  ;    OPINION  86 

Eesponsa  Prudenfmm,  answers  by  prominent  lawyers 
to  questions  put  to  them  by  their  clients,  in  Avhich  the 
older  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  was  expounded,  ex- 
panded, and  often  practically  set  aside  by  their  com- 
ments. Sir  Henry  Maine  thus  states  the  situation : 
"The  authors  of  the  new  jurisprudence,  during  the 
whole  progress  of  its  formation,  professed  the  most 
sedulous  respect  for  the  letter  of  the  code.  They  were 
merely  explaining  it,  deciphering  it,  bringing  out  its 
full  meaning  ;  but  then,  in  the  result,  by  placing  texts 
together,  by  adjusting  the  law  to  states  of  fact  which" 
actually  presented  themselves,  and  by  speculating  on 
its  possible  application  to  others  which  might  occur, 
by  introducing  principles  of  interpretation  derived 
from  the  exegesis  of  other  written  documents  which 
fell  under  their  observation,  they  educed  a  vast  vari- 
ety of  canons  which  had  never  been  dreamt  of  by  the 
compilers  of  the  Twelve  Tables,  and  which  were  in 
truth  rarely  or  never  to  be  found  there."  All  this 
precisely  applies  to  the  development  of  law  in  Islam. 
The  part  of  the  Twelve  Tables  was  taken  by  the 
statute  law  of  the  Quran  and  the  case  law  derived 
from  the  Usage  of  Muhammad ;  that  of  the  Eoman 
lurisprudentes  by  those  speculative  jurists  who  worked 
mostly  outside  of  al-Madina  in  the  camp  cities  of 
Mesopotamia  and  Syria — the  very  name  for  lawyer  in 
Arabic,  faqih,  plural  fuqalia,  is  a  translation  of  pru- 
dens,  prudentes ;  and  that  of  the  Eesponsa,  the  an- 
swers, by  the  "  Opinion "  which  they  claimed  as  a 
legitimate  legal  method  and  source.  Further,  the 
validity  of  a  general  agreement  of  jurisconsults  "re- 
minds us  of  the  rescript  of  Hadrian,  which  ordains 


86  DEVELOPMENT    OF   JURISPRUDENCE 

that,  if  the  opinions  of  the  licensed  prudentes  all 
agreed,  such  common  opinion  had  the  force  of  stat- 
ute; but  if  they  disagreed,  the  judge  might  follow 
which  he  chose."  The  Arabic  term,  ra'y^  here  ren- 
dered Opinion,  has  passed  through  marked  vicissi- 
tudes of  usage.  In  old  Arabic,  before  it,  in  the  view  of 
some,  began  to  keep  bad  company,  it  meant  an  opin- 
ion that  was  thoughtful,  weighed  and  reasonable,  as 
opposed  to  a  hasty  dictate  of  ill-regulated  passion. 
In  that  sense  it  is  used  in  a  tradition — probably 
forged — handed  down  from  Muhammad.  He  was 
sending  a  judge  to  take  charge  of  legal  affairs  in 
al-Yaman,  and  asked  him  on  what  he  would  base  his 
legal  decisions.  "  On  the  Qur'an,"  he  replied.  "  But 
if  that  contains  nothing  to  the  purpose?"  "Then 
upon  your  usage."  "But  if  that  also  fails  you?'* 
"Then  I  will  follow  my  own  opinion."  And  the 
Prophet  approved  his  purpose.  A  similar  tradition 
goes  back  to  Umar,  the  first  Khalifa,  and  it,  too,  is 
probably  a  later  forgery,  written  to  defend  this  source 
of  law.  But,  with  the  revolt  against  the  use  of  Opin- 
ion, to  which  we  shall  soon  come,  the  term  itself  fell 
into  grave  disrepute  and  came  to  signify  an  unfounded 
conclusion.  In  its  extremest  development  it  went 
beyond  the  Responsa^  which  professed  always  to  be 
in  exact  accord  with  the  letter  of  the  older  law,  and 
attained  to  be  Equity  in  the  strict  sense ;  that  is,  the 
rejection  of  the  letter  of  the  law  for  a  view  supposed 
to  be  more  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  justice 
itself.  Thus,  Equity,  in  the  English  sense,  is  the 
law  administered  by  the  Court  of  Chancery  and 
claims,  in  the  words  again  of  Sir  Henry  Maine,  to 


EQUITli:;   LEGAL   FICTION  87 

"  override  the  older  jurisprudence  of  the  country  on 
the  strength  of  an  intrinsic  ethical  superiority."  In 
Roman  law,  as  introduced  by  the  edict  of  the  Prsetor, 
it  was  the  law  of  Nature,  "the  part  of  law  'which 
natural  reason  appoints  for  all  mankind.' "  This  is 
represented  in  Islam  under  two  forms,  covered  by 
two  technical  terms.  The  one  is  that  the  legist,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  analogy  of  the  fixed  code 
clearly  points  to  one  course,  "  considers  it  better  " 
(istihsan)  to  follow  a  different  one  ;  and  the  other  is 
that,  under  the  same  conditions,  he  chooses  a  free 
course  "  for  the  sake  of  general  benefit  to  the  com- 
munity "  {isiislali).  Further  scope  of  Equity  Muslim 
law  never  reached,  and  the  legitimacy  of  these  two 
developments  was,  as  we  shall  see,  bitterly  contested. 
The  freedom  of  opinion,  with  its  possibility  of  a  sys- 
tem of  Equity,  had  eventually  to  be  given  up,  and  all 
that  was  left  in  its  place  was  a  permissibility  of  an- 
alogical deduction  (qiyas),  the  nearest  thing  to  which 
in  Western  law  is  Legal  Fiction.  In  a  word,  the 
possibility  of  development  by  Equity  was  lost,  and 
Legal  Fiction  entered  in  its  place.  But  this  antici- 
pates, and  we  must  return  to  the  strictly  historical 
movement. 

During  the  first  thirty  years  after  the  death  of 
Muhammad — the  period  covered  by  the  reigns  of  the 
four  theocratic  rulers  whom  Islam  still  calls  "the 
Four  Just,  or  Rightly  Guided  Khalifas  "  (al-Khulafa 
ar-rashidun) — the  two  twin  studies  of  tradition 
(hadith)  and  of  law  (fiqh)  were  fostered  and  encour- 
aged by  the  state.  The  centre  of  that  state  was  still 
in  al-Madina,  on  ground  sacred  with  the  memories  of 


88      DEVELOPMENT  OF  JURISPRUDENCE 

the  Prophet,  amid  the  scenes  where  he  had  himself 
been  lord  and  judge,  and  under  the  conditions  in 
which  his  life  as  ruler  had  been  cast.  All  the  sources, 
except  that  of  divine  revelation,  which  had  been 
open  to  him,  were  open  to  his  successors  and  they 
made  full  use  of  all.  Eound  that  mother-hearth  of 
Islam  was  still  gathered  the  great  body  of  the  im- 
mediate Companions  of  Muhammad,  and  they  formed 
a  deliberative  or  consulting  council  to  aid  the  Khalifa 
in  his  task.  The  gathering  of  tradition  and  the  de- 
veloping of  law  were  vital  functions  ;  they  were  the 
basis  of  the  public  life  of  the  state.  This  patriarchal 
period  in  Muslim  history  is  the  golden  age  of  Islam. 
It  ended  with  the  death  of  Ali,  in  the  year  40  of  the 
Hijra,  and  the  succession  of  Mu'awiya  in  the  follow- 
ing year.  "  For  thirty  years,"  runs  a  tradition  from 
the  Prophet,  **my  People  will  tread  in  my  Path 
(sunna) ;  then  will  come  kings  and  princes." 

And  so  it  was ;  Mu'awiya  was  the  first  of  the  Umay- 
yad  dynasty  and  with  him  and  them  Islam,  in  all 
but  the  name,  was  at  an  end.  He  and  they  were  Arab 
kings  of  the  old  type  that  had  reigned  before  Muham- 
mad at  al-Hira  and  Ghassan,  whose  will  had  been  their 
law.  The  capital  of  the  new  kingdom  was  Damascus  ; 
al-Madina  became  a  place  of  refuge,  a  Cave  of  Adul- 
1am,  for  the  old  Muslim  party.  There  they  might 
spin  theories  of  state  and  of  law,  and  lament  the 
good  old  days ;  so  long  as  there  was  no  rebellion,  the 
Umayyads  cared  little  for  those  things  or  for  the  men 
who  dreamt  them.  Once,  the  Umayyads  were  driven 
to  capture  and  sack  the  holy  city,  a  horror  in  Islam 
to  this  day.     After  that  there  was  peace,  the  peace 


GROWTH   OF   CANON   LAW  89 

of  the  accomplished  fact.  This  is  the  genuinely 
Arab  period  in  the  history  of  Islam.  It  is  a  period 
full  of  color  and  light  and  life ;  of  love  and  song, 
battle  and  feasting.  Thought  was  free  and  conduct 
too.  The  great  theologian  of  the  Greek  Church,  John 
of  Damascus,  held  high  office  at  the  Umayyad  court, 
and  al-Akhtal,  a  Christian  at  least  in  name,  was  their 
poet  laureate.  It  is  true  that  the  stated  services  of 
religion  were  kept  up  and  on  every  Friday  the  Khali- 
fa had  to  entertain  the  people  by  a  display  of  elo- 
quence and  wit  in  the  weekly  sermon.  But  the  old 
world  was  dead  and  the  days  of  its  unity  would  never 
come  again.  So  all  knew,  except  the  irreconcilable 
party,  the  last  of  the  true  Muslims  who  still  haunted 
the  sacred  soil  of  al-Madina  and  labored  in  the  old 
paths.  They  gathered  the  traditions  of  the  Prophet ; 
they  regulated  their  lives  more  and  more  strictly  by 
his  usage  ;  they  gave  ghostly  council  to  the  pious 
who  sought  their  help ;  they  labored  to  build  up 
elaborate  systems  of  law.  But  it  Avas  all  elaboration 
and  hypothetical  purely.  There  was  in  it  no  vitaliz- 
ing force  from  practical  life. 

From  this  time  on  Muslim  law  has  been  more  or 
less  in  the  position  held  by  the  canon  law  of  tlie 
Roman  Church  in  a  country  that  will  not  recognize  it 
yet  dares  not  utterly  reject  it.  The  Umayyads  were 
statesmen  and  opportunists ;  they  lived,  in  legal 
things,  as  much  from  hand  to  mouth  as  Muhammad 
had  done.  He  cut  all  knots  with  divine  legislation ; 
they  cut  them  with  the  edge  of  their  will.  Under 
them,  as  under  him,  a  system  of  law  was  impossible. 
But  at  the  same  time,  in  quiet  and  in  secret,  this 


yO      DEVELOPMENT  OF  JUKISPKUDENCE 

canou  law  of  Islam  was  slowly  growing  up,  slowly 
rounding  into  full  perfection  of  detailed  correlation. 
It  was  governing  absolutely  the  private  lives  of  all 
the  good  Muslims  that  were  left,  and  even  the  godless 
Umayyads,  as  they  had  to  preach  on  Fridays  to  the 
People  of  Muhammad,  so  they  had  to  deal  with  it 
cautiously  and  respectfully.  Of  the  names  and  lives 
of  these  obscure  jurists  little  has  reached  us  and  it  is 
needless  to  give  that  little  here.  Only  with  the  final 
fall  of  the  Umayyads,  in  the  year  of  the  Hijra  132, 
do  we  come  into  the  light  and  see  the  different  schools 
forming  under  clear  and  definite  leaders. 


I 


CHAPTEK  II 

The  Abbasid  rerolution  ;  the  compromise ;  the  problem  of  the  Ab- 
basids ;  the  two  classes  of  canon  lawyers  and  theologians ;  the 
rise  of  legal  schools  ;  Abu  Hanif a ;  his  application  of  Legal 
Fiction ;  istihsan :  the  Qadi  Abu  Yusuf ;  Muhammad  ibn  al- 
Hasan  ;  Sufyan  ath-Thawri  ;  al-Awza'i ;  Malik  ibn  Anas ;  the 
Usage  of  al-Madina  ;  istislah ;  the  doctrine  of  Agreement ;  the 
beginning  of  controversy  ;  traditionalists  or  historical  lawyers 
versus  rationalists  or  philosophical  lawyers;  ash-Shafi'i,  a 
mediator  and  systematizer ;  the  Agreement  of  the  Muslim 
people  a  formal  source ;  "  My  People  will  never  agree  in  an 
error;"  the  resultant  four  sources,  Qur'an,  Usage,  Analogy, 
Agreement ;  the  traditionalist  revolt ;  Da'ud  az-Zahiri  and 
literalism  ;  Ahmad  ibn  Hanbal ;  the  four  abiding  schools ;  the 
Agreement  of  Islam;  the  Disagreement  of  Islam;  iurare  in 
verba  magistri ;  the  degrees  of  authority;  the  canon  and  the 
civil  codes  in  Islam ;  their  respective  spheres ;  distribution  of 
schools  at  present  day  ;  Shi'ite  law  ;  Ibadite  law. 

That  great  revolution  wliich  brought  the  Abbasid 
dynasty  to  power  seemed  at  first  to  the  pious  theo- 
logians and  lawyers  to  be  a  return  of  the  old  days. 
They  dreamt  of  entering  again  into  their  rights ;  that 
the  canon  law  would  be  the  full  law  of  the  land.  It 
was  only  slowly  that  their  eyes  were  opened,  and 
many  gave  up  the  vain  contest  and  contented  them- 
selves with  compromise.  This  had  been  rare  under 
the  Umayyads ;  the  one  or  two  canon  lawyers  Avho 
had  thrown  in  their  lot  with  them  had  been  marked 
men.  Az-Zuhri  (d.  124),  a  man  of  the  highest  moral 
and  theological  reputation  Avho  played  a  very  im- 

91 


92   DEVELOPMENT  OF  JURISPRUDENCE 

portant  part  in  the  first  codifying  of  traditions,  was 
one  of  these,  and  the  later  pious  historians  have  had 
hard  work  to  smooth  over  his  connection  with  the 
impious  Umayyads.  Probably — it  may  be  well  to 
say  here — the  stories  against  the  Umayyads  have  been 
much  heightened  in  color  by  their  later  tellers 
and  also  az-Zuhri,  being  a  man  of  insight  and  states- 
manship, may  have  recognized  that  their  rule  was  the 
best  chance  for  peace  in  the  country.  Muslims  have 
come  generally  to  accept  the  position  that  unbelief 
on  the  part  of  the  government,  if  the  government  is 
strong  and  just,  is  better  than  true  belief  and  anarchy. 
This  has  found  expression,  as  all  such  things  do,  in 
traditions  put  in  the  mouth  of  the  Prophet. 

But  while  only  a  few  canonists  had  taken  the  part 
of  the  Umayyads,  far  more  accepted  the  favors  of  the 
Abbasids,  took  office  under  them  and  worked  in  their 
cause.  The  Abbasids,  too,  had  need  of  such  men.  It 
was  practically  the  religious  sentiment  of  the  people 
that  had  overthrown  the  Umayyads  and  raised  them 
to  power;  and  that  religious  sentiment,  though  it 
could  never  be  fully  satisfied,  must  yet  be  respected 
and,  more  important  still,  used.  There  is  a  striking 
parallel  between  the  situation  then,  and  that  of  Scot- 
land at  the  Kevolution  Settlement  of  1688.  The 
power  of  the  Stuarts— that  is,  of  the  worldly  Umay- 
yads— had  been  overthrown.  The  oppressed  Church 
of  the  Covenant — that  is,  the  old  Muslim  party— had 
been  freed.  The  state  was  to  be  settled  upon  a  new 
basis.  What  was  that  basis  to  be  ?  The  Covenant- 
ing party  demanded  the  recognition  of  the  Headship 
of  Christ — that  the  Kirk  should  rule  the  state,  or 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   THE  ABBASIDS  93 

sliould  be  the  state,  and  that  all  other  religious  views 
should  be  put  under  penalty.  The  old  Muslim  party 
looked  for  similar  things.  That  religious  life  should 
be  purified ;  that  the  canon  law  should  be  again  the 
law  of  the  state ;  that  the  constitution  of  Umar  sliould 
berestored.  How  the  Covenanters  were  disappointed, 
how  much  they  got  and  how  much  they  failed  to  get, 
needs  no  telling  here. 

Exactly  in  the  same  way  it  befell  the  old  Muslims. 
The  theological  reformation  was  sweeping  and  com- 
plete. The  first  Abbasids  were  pious,  at  least  out- 
wardly; the  state  was  put  upon  a  pious  footing. 
The  canon  law  also  was  formally  restored,  but  with 
large  practical  modifications.  Canon  lawyers  were 
received  into  the  service  of  the  state,  provided  they 
were  adaptable  enough.  Impossible  men  had  no 
place  under  the  Abbasids ;  their  officials  must  be 
pliable  and  dexterous,  for  a  new  modus  vivendi  was 
to  be  found.  The  rough  and  ready  Umayyad  cut- 
ting of  the  knot  had  failed ;  the  turn  had  now  come 
for  piety  and  dexterity  in  twisting  law.  The  court 
lawyers  learned  to  drive  a  coach  and  four  through 
any  of  the  old  statutes,  and  found  their  fortunes  in 
their  brains.  So  the  issue  was  bridged.  But  a  large 
party  of  malcontents  was  left,  and  from  this  time  on 
in  Islam  the  lawyers  and  the  theologians  have  di- 
vided into  two  classes,  the  one  admitting,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  expediency,  the  authority  of  the  powers  of  the 
time  and  aiding  them  in  their  task  as  rulers ;  the 
other,  irreconcilable  and  unreconciled,  denouncing 
the  state  as  sunk  in  unbelief  and  deadly  sin  and  its 
lawyers  as  traitors  to  the  cause  of  religion.     To  pur- 


94  DEVELOPMENT   OF  JURISPRUDENCE 

sue  our  parallel,  they  are  represented  in  Scotland  by 
a  handful  of  Covenanting  congregations  and  in  Amer- 
ica by  the  much  more  numerous  and  powerful  lie- 
formed  Presbyterian  Church. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  with  the  lifting  of  the 
Umayyad  pressure  and  the  encouragement  of  legal 
studies — such  as  it  was — by  the  Abbasids,  definite 
and  recognized  schools  of  law  began  to  form.  What 
had  so  long  been  in  process  in  secret  became  public, 
and  its  results  crystallized  under  certain  prominent 
teachers.  We  will  now  take  up  these  schools  in  the 
order  of  the  death  dates  of  their  founders ;  we  will 
establish  their  principles  and  trace  their  histories. 
We  shall  find  the  same  conceptions  recurring  again 
and  again  which  have  already  been  brought  out, 
Qur'an,  tradition  (hadith),  agreement  {ijma),  opinion 
(ra'y),  analogy  (qiyas),  local  usage  {urf),  preference 
(istihsan)^  in  the  teeth  of  the  written  law — till  at  length, 
when  the  battle  is  over,  the  sources  will  have  limited 
themselves  to  the  four  which  have  survived  to  the 
present  day — Qur'an,  tradition,  agreement,  analogy. 
And,  similarly,  of  the  six  schools  to  be  mentioned, 
four  only  will  remain  to  the  present  time,  but  these 
of  equal  rank  and  validity  in  the  eyes  of  the  Believ- 
ers. 

The  Abbasids  came  to  power  in  the  year  of  the 
Hijra  132,  and  in  150  died  Abu  Hanifa,  the  first 
student  and  teacher  to  leave  behind  him  a  systematic 
body  of  teaching  and  a  missionary  school  of  pupils. 
He  was  a  Persian  by  race,  and  perhaps  the  most  dis- 
tinguished example  of  the  rule  that  Muslim  scientists 
and  thinkers  miofht  write  in  Arabic  but  were  seldom 


ABU   IIANIFA  95 

of  Arab  blood.  He  does  not  seem  to  have  held  office 
as  a  judge  or  to  have  practised  law  at  all.  He  was, 
rather,  an  academic  student,  a  speculative  or  philo- 
sophical jurist  we  might  call  him.  His  system  of 
law,  therefore,  was  not  based  upon  the  exigencies  of 
experience ;  it  did  not  arise  from  an  attempt  to  meet 
actual  cases.  We  might  say  of  it,  rather,  but  in  a 
good  sense,  that  it  was  a  system  of  casuistry,  an  at- 
tempt to  build  up  on  scientific  principles  a  set  of 
rules  which  would  answer  every  conceivable  question 
of  law.  In  the  hands  of  some  of  his  pupils,  when 
applied  to  actual  facts,  it  tended  to  develop  into  casu- 
istry in  a  bad  sense ;  but  no  charge  of  perverting 
justice  for  his  own  advantage  seems  to  have  been 
brought  against  Abu  Hanifa  himself.  His  chief  in- 
struments in  constructing  his  system  were  opinion 
and  analogy.  He  leaned  little  upon  traditions  of 
the  usage  of  Muhammad,  but  preferred  to  take  the 
Qur'anic  texts  and  develop  from  them  his  details.  But 
the  doing  of  this  compelled  him  to  modify  simple 
opinion — equivalent  to  equity  as  we  have  seen — and 
limit  it  to  analogy  of  some  written  statute  (nass).  He 
could  hardly  forsake  a  plain  res  iudicata  of  Muham- 
mad, and  follow  his  own  otherwise  unsupported  views, 
but  he  might  choose  to  do  so  if  he  could  base  it  on 
analogy  from  the  Qur'an.  Thus,  he  came  to  use  what 
was  practically  legal  fiction.  It  is  the  application 
of  an  old  law  in  some  sense  or  way  that  was  never 
dreamt  of  by  the  first  imposer  of  the  law,  and  which 
may,  in  fact,  run  directly  counter  to  the  purpose  of 
the  law.  The  fiction  is  that  it  is  the  original  law  that 
is  being  observed,  while,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there 


96  DEVELOPMENT   OF   JURISPPwUDENCE 

lias  come  iu  its  place  an  entirely  different  law.  So 
Abu  Hanifa  would  contend  that  he  was  following  the 
divine  legislation  of  the  Qur'an,  while  his  adversaries 
contended  that  he  was  only  following  his  own  opinion. 

But  if,  on  the  one  hand,  he  was  thus  limited  from 
equity  to  legal  fiction,  on  another  he  developed  a 
new  principle  of  even  greater  freedom.  Reference 
has  already  been  made  to  the  changes  which  were 
of  necessity  involved  in  the  new  conditions  of  the 
countries  conquered  by  the  Muslims.  Often  the  law 
of  the  desert  not  only  failed  to  apply  to  town  and 
agricultural  life ;  it  was  even  directly  mischievous. 
On  account  of  this,  a  consideration  of  local  conditions 
was  early  accepted  as  a  principle,  but  in  general 
terms.  These  were  reduced  to  definiteness  bv  Abu 
Hanifa  under  the  formula  of  "holding  for  better" 
(istihsan).  He  would  say,  "The  analogy  in  the  case 
points  to  such  and  such  a  rule,  but  under  the  circum- 
stances I  hold  it  for  better  to  rule  thus  and  thus." 

This  method,  as  we  shall  see  later,  was  vehemently 
attacked  by  his  opponents,  as  was  his  system  in  gen- 
eral. Yet  that  system  by  its  philosophical  perfection 
— due  to  its  theoretical  origin — and  perfection  in 
detail — due  to  generations  of  practical  workers — has 
survived  all  attack  and  can  now  be  said  to  be  the 
leading  one  of  the  four  existing  schools.  No  legal 
writings  of  Abu  Hanifa  have  reached  us,  nor  does  he 
seem  to  have,  himself,  cast  his  system  into  a  finished 
code.  That  was  done  by  his  immediate  pupils,  and 
especially  by  two,  the  Qadi  Abu  Yusuf,  who  died  in 
182,  and  Muhammad  ibn  al-Hasan,  who  died  in  189. 
The  first  was  consulting  lawyer  and  chief  Qadi  to  the 


THE    QADI    ABU   YUSUF  97 

gi'eat  Khalifa  Hariiu  ar-Rasliid,  and,  if  stones  cau  be 
believed,  proved  himseK  as  complaisant  of  conscience 
as  a  conrt  casuist  need  be.  Innumerable  are  the 
tales  afloat  of  his  minute  knowledge  of  legal  subtleties 
and  his  fertility  of  device  in  applying  them  to  meet 
the  whims  of  his  master,  Harun.  Some  of  them  have 
found  a  resting  place  in  that  great  mirror  of  mediaeval 
Muslim  life,  The  Thousand  and  One  Nights  ;  reference 
may  be  made  to  Night  296.  Through  his  influence, 
the  school  of  Abu  Hanifa  gained  an  official  impor- 
tance which  it  never  thereafter  lost.  He  wrote  for 
Harun  a  book  which  we  have  still,  on  the  canon  law 
as  applied  to  the  revenues  of  the  state,  a  thorny  and  al- 
most impossible  subject,  for  the  canon  laAv  makes  really 
no  provision  for  the  necessary  funds  of  even  a  simple 
form  of  government  and  much  less  for  such  an  array 
of  palaces  and  officials  as  had  grown  up  around  the 
Abbasids.  His  book  is  marked  by  great  piety  in  ex- 
pression and  by  ability  of  the  highest  kind  in  recon- 
ciling the  irreconcilable. 

But  all  the  canon  lawyers  did  not  fall  in  so  easily 
with  the  new  ways.  Many  found  that  only  in  ascet- 
icism, in  renunciation  of  the  world  and  engaging  in 
pious  exercises  was  there  any  chance  of  their  main- 
taining the  old  standards  in  a  state  that  Avas  for 
them  based  on  oppression  and  robbery.  One  of 
these  was  Sufj^an  ath-Thawri,  a  lawyer  of  high  re- 
pute, who  narrowly  missed  founding  a  separate  school 
of  law  and  who  died  in  161.  There  has  come  down 
to  us  a  correspondence  between  him  and  Harun, 
which,  though  it  cannot  possibly  be  genuine,  throws 
much  light  on  the  disappointment  of   the  sincerely 


98      DEVELOPMENT  OF  JURISPRUDENCE 

religious  section.  Harnn  writes  on  liis  accession  to 
the  Klialifate  (170),  complaining  that  Sufyan  had  not 
visited  him,  in  spite  of  their  bond  of  brotherhood, 
and  offering  him  wealth  from  the  public  treasury, 
Sufyan  replied,  denouncing  such  use  of  public  funds 
and  all  the  other  uses  of  them  by  Harun — many 
enough  —  except  those  precisely  laid  down  in  the 
codes.  On  the  basis  of  these,  Harun  would  have  had 
to  work  for  his  own  living.  There  are  also  other 
denunciations  for  crimes  in  the  ruler  which  he  pun- 
ished in  others.  Harun  is  said  to  have  kept  the  letter 
and  wept  over  it  at  intervals,  but  no  change  of  life  on 
his  part  is  recorded.  Apparently,  with  the  accession 
of  the  Abbasids  ascetic  and  mystical  Islam  made  a 
great  development.  It  became  plain  to  the  pious 
that  no  man  could  inherit  both  this  world  and  the 
next. 

While  Abu  Hanifa  was  developing  his  system  in 
Mesopotamia,  al-Awza'i  was  working  similarly  in 
Syria.  He  was  born  at  Baalbec,  lived  at  Damascus, 
and  at  Beyrout  where  he  died  in  157.  Of  him  and 
his  teaching  we  know  comparatively  little.  But  so 
far  it  is  clear  that  he  was  not  a  speculative  jurist  of 
the  same  type  as  Abu  Hanifa,  but  paid  especial  at- 
tention to  traditions.  At  one  time  his  school  was 
followed  by  the  Muslims  of  Syria  and  the  entire 
West  to  Morocco  and  Spain.  But  its  day  was  a  short 
one.  The  school  of  Abu  Hanifa,  championed  by  Abu 
Yusuf  with  his  tremendous  influence  as  chief  Qadi 
of  the  Abbasid  empire,  pushed  it  aside,  and  at  the 
present  day  it  has  no  place  except  in  history.  For 
us,  its  interest  is  that  of  another  witness  to  the  early 


MALIK   IBN  ANAS  99 

rise  and  spread  of  systems  of  jurisprudence  outside 
of  Arabia. 

In  A.H.  179,  tliree  years  before  the  death  of  Abu 
Yusuf  and  twenty-nine  after  that  of  Abu  Hanifa, 
there  died  at  al-Madina  the  founder  and  head  of 
an  independent  school  of  a  very  different  type.  This 
was  MaHk  ibn  Anas,  under  whose  hands  what  we  may 
call,  for  distinction,  the  historical  school  of  al-Ma- 
dina took  form.  Al-Madina,  it  will  be  remembered, 
was  the  mother-city  of  Muslim  law.  It  was  the 
special  home  of  the  traditions  of  the  Prophet  and  the 
scene  of  his  legislative  and  judicial  life.  Its  pre- 
Islamic  customary  law  had  been  sanctioned,  in  a 
sense,  by  his  use.  It  had  been  the  capital  of  the 
state  in  its  purest  days.  From  the  height  of  all  these 
privileges  its  traditionists  and  lawyers  looked  down 
upon  the  outsiders  and  parvenus  who  had  begun  to 
intermeddle  in  sacred  things. 

But  it  must  not  be  thought  that  this  school  was  of 
a  rigid  traditionism.  The  case  was  quite  the  reverse, 
and  in  many  respects  it  is  hard  to  make  a  distinction 
between  it  and  that  of  Abu  Hanifa.  Its  first  source 
was,  of  necessity,  the  Qur'an.  Then  came  the  u.sage  of 
the  Prophet.  This  merged  into  the  usage  of  the  Suc- 
cessors of  the  Prophet  and  the  unwritten  custom  of 
the  town.  It  will  be  seen  that  here  the  historical 
weight  of  the  place  came  to  bear.  No  other  place,  no 
other  community,  could  furnish  that  later  tradition 
with  anything  like  the  same  authority.  Further,  Malik 
ibn  Anas  was  a  practical  jurist,  a  working  judge.  He 
was  occupied  in  meeting  real  cases  from  day  to  day. 
When  he  sat  in  public  and  judged  the  people,  or 


100  DEVELOPMENT   OF   JURISPRUDENCE 

witli  liis  pupils  around  liim  and  expounded  and  de- 
veloped the  law,  he  could  look  back  upon  a  line  of 
canon  lawyers  who  had  sat  in  his  place  and  done 
as  he  was  doing.  In  that  lies  the  great  difference. 
He  was  in  practical  touch  with  actual  life  ;  that  was 
one  point ;  and,  secondly,  he  was  in  the  direct  line 
of  the  apostolic  succession,  and  in  the  precise  en- 
vironment of  the  Prophet.  So  when  he  went  beyond 
Qur'an,  prophetic  usage,  agreement,  and  gave  out 
decisions  on  simple  opinion,  the  feeling  of  the  com- 
munity justified  him.  It  was  a  different  thing  for 
Malik  ibn  Anas,  sitting  there  in  state  in  al-Madina, 
to  use  his  judgment,  than  for  some  quick-brained 
vagabond  of  a  Persian  or  Syrian  proselyte,  some 
pauvre  diahle  with  neither  kith  nor  kin  in  the  coun- 
try, to  lay  down  principles  of  law.  So  the  pride  of 
the  city  of  the  Prophet  distinguished  between  him  and 
Abu  Hanifa. 

But  though  the  speculative  element  in  the  school 
of  Malik,  apart  from  its  local  and  historical  environ- 
ment, which  gave  it  unifying  weight,  was  essentially 
the  same  as  in  the  school  of  Abu  Hanifa,  yet  it  is 
true  that  at  al-Madina  it  played  a  less  important 
part.  Malik  used  tradition  more  copiously  and  took 
refuge  in  oj)inion  less  frequently.  Without  opinion, 
he  could  not  have  built  his  system  ;  but  for  him  it 
was  not  so  much  a  primary  principle  as  a  means 
of  escape.  Yet  one  principle  of  great  freedom  he 
did  derive  from  it  and  lay  down  with  clearness  ;  it 
is  the  conception  of  the  public  advantage  (istislah). 
When  a  rule  would  work  general  injury  it  is  to  be 
set  aside  even  in  the  teeth  of  a  valid  analogy.     This, 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF   AGREEMENT  101 

it  will  be  seen,  is  nearly  the  same  as  the  preference 
of  Abu  Hanifa.  The  technical  term  istislak,  chosen 
by  Malik  to  express  his  idea,  was  probably  intended 
to  distinguish  it  from  that  of  Abu  Hanifa,  and  also 
to  suggest  in  the  public  advantage  (^maslaha)  a  more 
valid  basis  than  the  mere  preference  of  the  legist. 

Another  conception  which  Malik  and  his  school 
developed  into  greater  exactitude  and  force  was  that 
of  the  agreement  {ijma).  It  will  be  remembered  that 
from  the  death  of  Muhammad  all  the  surviving  Com- 
panions resident  in  al-Madina  formed  a  kind  of  con- 
sultive  council  to  aid  the  Khalifa  with  their  store  of 
tradition  and  experience.  Their  agreement  on  any 
point  was  final ;  it  was  the  voice  of  the  Church.  This 
doctrine  of  the  infallibility  of  the  body  of  the  be- 
lievers developed  in  Islam  until  at  its  widest  it 
was  practically  the  same  as  the  canon  of  catholic 
truth  formulated  by  Vincent  of  Lerins,  Quod  tibique, 
quod  semper,  quod  ah  omnibus.  But  Malik,  according 
to  the  usual  view,  had  no  intention  of  granting  any 
such  deciding  power  to  the  outside  world.  The  world 
for  him  was  al-Madina  and  the  agreement  of  al- 
Madina  established  catholic  verity.  Yet  there  are 
narratives  which  suggest  that  he  approved  the  agree- 
ment and  local  usage  of  al-Madina  for  al-Madina  be- 
cause they  suited  al-Madina.  Other  places  might 
also  have  their  local  usages  which  suited  them  better. 

In  the  next  school  we  shall  find  the  principle  of 
agreement  put  upon  a  broader  basis  and  granted 
greater  weight.  Finally,  Malik  is  the  first  founder 
of  a  system  from  whom  a  law  book,  the  3Iuiuatta 
mentioned  above,  has  come  down  to  us.     It  is  not ' 


102  DEVELOPMENT   OF   JURISPRUDENCE 

in  the  exact  sense,  a  manual  or  code  ;  rather  a  col- 
lection of  materials  for  a  code  with  remarks  by  the 
collector.  He  gives  the  traditions  which  seem  to  him 
of  juristic  importance — about  seventeen  hundred  in 
all — arranged  according  to  subject,  and  follows  up 
each  section,  when  necessary,  with  remarks  upon  the 
usage  of  al-Madina,  and  upon  his  own  view  of  the 
matter.  When  he  cannot  find  either  tradition  or 
usage,  he  evidently  feels  himseK  of  sufficient  author- 
ity to  follow  his  own  opinion,  and  lay  down  on  that 
basis  a  binding  rule.  This,  however,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  very  different  from  allowing  other  people, 
outsiders  to  al-Madina,  to  do  the  same  thing.  The 
school  founded  by  Malik  ibn  Anas  on  these  principles 
is  one  of  the  surviving  four.  As  that  of  Abu  Hanifa 
spread  eastward,  so  that  of  Malik  spread  westward, 
and  for  a  time  crushed  out  all  others.  The  firm  grip 
which  it  has  especially  gained  in  western  North 
Africa  may  be  due  to  the  influence  of  the  Idrisids 
whose  founder  had  to  flee  from  al-Madina  when 
Malik  was  in  the  height  of  his  reputation  there,  and 
also  to  hatred  of  the  Abbasids  who  championed  the 
school  of  Abu  Hanifa. 

But  now  we  pass  from  simple  development  to 
development  through  conflict.  O^en  conflict,  so  far 
as  there  had  been  any,  had  covered  points  of  detail ; 
for  example,  the  kind  of  opinion  professed  by  Abu 
Hanifa,  on  the  one  hand,  and  by  Malik,  on  the  other. 
One  of  the  chiefest  of  the  pupils  of  Abu  Hanifa,  the 
Muhammad  ibn  al-Hasan  already  mentioned,  spent 
three  years  in  study  with  Malik  at  al-Madina  and 
found  no  difficulty  in  thus  combining  his  schools. 


HISTORICAL   V.  PHILOSOPHICAL  LAWYERS   103 

The  conflict  of  the  future  was  to  be  different  and  to 
touch  the  very  basis  of  things.  The  muttering  of 
the  coming  storm  had  been  heard  for  long,  but  it 
was  now  to  burst.  Exact  dates  we  cannot  give,  but 
the  reaction  must  have  been  progressing  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  life  of  Malik  ibn  Anas. 

The  distinction  drawn  above  between  traditionists 
and  lawyers  will  be  remembered,  and  the  promise  of 
future  collision  which  always  has  come  between  his- 
torical or  empirical,  and  speculative  or  philosophical 
students  of  systems  of  jurisprudence.  The  one  side 
points  to  the  absurdities,  crudities,  and  inadequacies 
of  a  system  based  upon  tradition  and  developing  by 
usage ;  the  other  says  that  we  are  not  wise  enough 
to  rewrite  the  laws  of  our  ancestors.  These  urge  a 
necessity ;  those  retort  an  inability.  Add  to  this  a 
belief  on  the  part  of  the  traditionists  that  they  were 
defending  a  divine  institution  and  the  situation  is 
complete  as  it  now  lay  in  Islam.  The  extreme  right 
said  that  law  should  be  based  on  Qur'an  and  tradition 
only ;  the  extreme  left,  that  it  was  better  to  leave 
untrustworthy  and  obscure  traditions  and  work  out  a 
system  of  rules  by  logic  and  the  necessities  of  the 
case.  To  and  fro  between  these  two  extremes  swayed 
the  conflict  to  which  we  now  come. 

In  that  conflict  three  names  stand  out :  ash-Shafi'i 
who  died  in  204,  Ahmad  ibn  Hanbal  who  died  in  241 
and  Da'ud  az-Zahiri  who  died  in  270.  Strangely 
enough,  the  first  of  these,  ash-Shafi'i,  struck  the 
mediating  note  and  the  other  two  diverged  further 
and  further  from  the  via  media  thus  shown  toward 
a  blank  traditionism. 


104  DEVELOPMENT   OF  JURISPRUDENCE 

Ash-Shafi'i  is  without  question  one  of  the  greatest 
figures  in  the  history  of  law.  Perhaps  he  had  not 
the  originality  and  keenness  of  Abu  Hanifa ;  but  he 
had  a  balance  of  mind  and  temper,  a  clear  vision  and 
full  grasp  of  means  and  ends  that  enabled  him  to  say 
what  proved  to  be  the  last  word  in  the  matter.  After 
him  came  attempts  to  tear  down ;  but  they  failed. 
The  fabric  of  the  Muslim  canon  law  stood  firm.  There 
is  a  tradition  from  the  Prophet  that  he  promised  that 
with  the  end  of  every  century  would  come  a  restorer 
of  the  faith  of  his  people.  At  the  end  of  the  first 
century  was  the  pious  Khalifa,  Umar  ibn  Abd  al- 
Aziz,  who  by  some  accident  strayed  in  among  the 
Umayyads.  At  the  end  of  the  second  came  ash- 
Shafi'i.  His  work  was  to  mediate  and  systematize 
and  bore  especially  on  the  sources  from  which  rules 
of  law  might  be  drawn.  His  position  on  the  positive 
side  may  be  stated  as  one  of  great  reverence  for 
tradition.  "If  you  ever  find  a  tradition  from  the 
Prophet  saying  one  thing,"  he  is  reported  to  have 
said,  "  and  a  decision  from  me  saying  another  thing, 
follow  the  tradition."  An  absolutely  authentic — ac- 
cording to  Muslim  rules  of  evidence — and  clear  tra- 
dition from  the  Prophet  he  regarded  as  of  equally 
divine  authority  with  a  passage  in  the  Qur'an.  Both 
were  inspired  utterances,  if  slightly  different  in  form  ; 
the  Qur'an  was  verbally  inspired;  such  traditions 
were  inspired  as  to  their  content.  And  if  such  a 
tradition  contradicted  a  Qur'anic  passage  and  came 
after  it  in  time,  then  the  written  law  of  the  Qur'an 
w^as  abrogated  by  the  oral  law  of  the  tradition.  But 
this  involved  grave  difiiculties.     The  speculative  ju- 


AGREEMENT   AS   A   SOURCE  105 

rists  had  defended  their  position  from  the  beginning 
by  pointing  to  the  many  contradictory  traditions 
which  were  afloat,  and  asking  how  the  house  of  tradi- 
tion could  stand  when  so  divided  against  itself.  A 
means  of  reconciling  traditions  had  to  be  found,  and 
to  this  ash-Shafi'i  gave  himself.  We  need  not  go 
over  his  methods  here ;  they  were  the  same  that  have 
always  been  used  in  such  emergencies.  The  worship 
of  the  letter  led  to  the  straining  of  the  letter,  and  to 
exjDlaining  away  of  the  letter. 

But  there  lay  a  rock  in  his  course  more  dangerous 
than  any  mere  contradiction  in  differing  traditions. 
Usages  had  grown  up  and  taken  fast  hold  which  were 
in  the  teeth  of  all  traditions.  These  usages  were  in 
the  individual  life,  in  the  constitution  of  the  state, 
and  in  the  rules  and  decisions  of  the  law  courts.  The 
pious  theologian  and  lawyer  might  rage  against  them 
as  he  chose ;  they  were  there,  firmly  rooted,  immovable. 
They  were  not  arbitrary  changes,  but  had  come  about 
in  the  process  of  time  through  the  revolutions  of 
circumstances  and  varying  conditions.  Ash-Shafi'i 
showed  his  greatness  by  recognizing  the  inevitable 
and  providing  a  remedy.  This  lay  in  an  extension  of 
the  principle  of  agreement  and  the  erection  of  it  into 
a  formal  source.  Whatever  the  community  of  Islam 
has  agreed  upon  at  any  time,  is  of  God.  We  have 
met  this  principle  before,  but  never  couched  in  so  ab- 
solute and  catholic  a  form.  The  agreement  of  the 
immediate  Companions  of  Muhammad  had  weight 
with  his  first  Successors.  The  agreement  of  these 
first  Companions  and  of  the  first  generation  after 
them,  had  determining  weight  in  the  early  church. 


106  DEVELOPMENT   OF   JURISPRUDENCE 

The  agreement  of  al-Madina  had  weight  with  Malik 
ibn  Anas.  The  agreement  of  many  divines  and  le- 
gists always  had  weight  of  a  kind.  Among  lawyers, 
a  principle,  to  the  contrary  of  which  the  memory  of 
man  ran  not,  had  been  determining.  But  this  was 
wider,  and  from  this  time  on  the  unity  of  Islam  was 
assured.  The  evident  voice  of  the  People  of  Muham- 
mad was  to  be  the  voice  of  God.  Yet  this  principle, 
if  full  of  hope  and  value  for  the  future,  involved  the 
canonists  of  the  time  in  no  small  difficulties.  Was  it 
conceivable  that  the  agreement  could  override  the 
usage  of  the  Prophet  ?  Evidently  not.  There  must, 
then,  they  argued,  once  have  existed  some  tradition 
to  the  same  effect  as  the  agreement,  although  it  had 
now  been  lost.  Some  such  lost  authority  must  be 
presupposed.  This  can  remind  us  of  nothing  so 
much  as  of  the  theory  of  the  inerrant  but  lost  original 
of  the  Scriptures.  And  it  had  the  fate  of  that  theory. 
The  weight  of  necessity  forced  aside  any  such  trifling 
and  the  position  was  frankly  admitted  that  the  agree- 
ment of  the  community  was  a  safer  and  more  certain 
basis  than  traditions  from  the  Prophet.  Traditions 
were  alleged  to  that  effect.  ''  My  People  will  never 
agree  in  an  error,"  declared  Muhammad,  or,  at  least, 
the  later  church  made  him  so  declare. 

But  ash-Shafi'i  found  that  even  the  addition  of 
agreement  to  Qur'an  and  Prophetic  usage  did  not 
give  him  basis  enough  for  his  system.  Opinion  he 
utterly  rejected ;  the  preference  of  Abu  Hanifa  and 
the  conception  of  the  common  welfare  of  Malik  ibn 
Anas  were  alike  to  him.  It  is  true  also  that  both 
had  been   practically  saved  undei   agreement.     But 


ANALOGY  ;   THE   FOUR   SOURCES  107 

he  held  fast  by  analogy,  whether  based  on  the  Qur'an 
or  on  the  usage  of  the  Prophet.     It  was  an  essential 
instrument  for  his  purpose.     As  was  said,  "  The  laws 
of  the  Qur'an  and  of  the  usage  are  limited ;  the  pos- 
sible cases  are  unhmited ;  that  which  is  unlimited  can 
never  be  contained  in  that  which  is  limited."     But  in 
ash-Shafi'i's  use  of  analogy  there  is  a  distinction  to 
be  observed.     In  seeking  to  establish  a  parallelism 
between  a   case  that  has  arisen  and  a  rule  in  the 
Qur'an  or  usage,  which  is  similar  in  some  points  but 
not  precisely  parallel,   are  we  to   look  to   external 
points  of  resemblance,  or  may  we  go  further  and  seek 
to  determine  the  reason  (ilia)  lying  behind  the  rule 
and  from  that  draw  our  analogy  ?     The  point  seems 
simple  enough  and  the  early  speculative  jurists  sought 
the  reason.     For  that  they  were  promptly  attacked 
by  the  traditionists.     Such  a  method  was  an  attempt 
to  look  into  the  mysteries  of  God,  they  were  told ; 
man  has  no  business  to  inquire  after  reasons,  all  he 
has   to  do  is  to  obey.     The   point  thus  raised  was 
fought  over  for  centuries  and  schools  are  classified 
according  to  their  attitude  toward  it.     The  position 
of  ash-Shafi'i  seems  to  have  been  that  the  reason  for 
a  command  was  to  be  considered  in  drawing  an  anal- 
ogy, but  that  there  must  be  some  clear  guide,  in  the 
text  itself,  pointing  to  the  reason.     He  thus  left  him- 
self free  to  consider  the  causes   of  the  divine  com- 
mands and  yet  produced  the  appearance  of  avoiding 
any  irreverence  or  impiety  in  doing  so. 

Such  then  are  the  four  sources  or  bases  {ctsls)  of 
jurisprudence  as  accepted  and  defined  by  ash-Shafi'i — • 
Qur'an,  prophetic   usage,  analogy,  agreement.     The 


108  DEVELOPMENT   OF   JURISPRUDENCE 

last  has  come  to  bear  more  and  more  weight.  Every 
Shafi'ite  law  book  begins  each  section  with  words  to 
this  effect,  "  The  basis  of  this  rule,  before  the  agree- 
ment {qahla-l-ijma),  is  "  Qur'an  or  usage  as  the  case 
may  be.  The  agreement  must  put  its  stamp  on 
every  rule  to  make  it  valid.  Further,  all  the  now 
existing  schools  have  practically  accepted  ash-Shafi'i's 
classification  of  the  sources  and  many  have  contended 
that  a  lawyer,  no  matter  what  his  school,  who  does 
not  use  all  these  four  sources,  cannot  be  permitted 
to  act  as  a  judge.  Ash-Shafi'i  has  accomplished  his 
own  definition  of  a  true  jurist,  "  Not  he  is  a  jurist 
who  gathers  statements  and  prefers  one  of  them,  but 
he  who  establishes  a  new  principle  from  which  a 
hundred  branches  may  spring." 

But  the  extreme  traditionists  were  little  satisfied 
with  this  compromise.  They  objected  to  analogy 
and  they  objected  to  agreement ;  nothing  but  the 
pure  law  of  God  and  the  Prophet  would  satisfy  them. 
And  their  numbers  were  undoubtedly  large.  The 
common  people  always  heard  traditions  gladly,  and 
it  was  easy  to  turn  to  ridicule  the  subtleties  of  the 
professional  lawyers.  How  much  simpler,  it  struck 
the  average  mind,  it  would  be  to  follow  some  clear 
and  unambiguous  saying  of  the  Prophet ;  then  one 
could  feel  secure.  This  desire  of  the  plain  man  to 
take  traditions  and  interpret  them  strictl}^  and  liter- 
ally was  met  by  the  school  of  Da'ud  az-Zahiri,  David 
the  literalist.  He  was  born  three  or  four  j^ears  be- 
fore the  death  of  ash-Shafi'i,  which  occurred  in  204. 
He  was  trained  as  a  Shafi'ite  and  that,  too,  of  the  nar- 
rower, more  traditional  type;  but  it  was  not  tradi- 


da'ud  az-zahiri  109 

tional  enough  for  him.  So  he  had  to  cut  himself 
loose  and  form  a  school  of  his  own.  He  rejected 
utterly  analogy ;  he  limited  agreement,  as  a  source, 
to  the  agreement  of  the  immediate  Companions  of 
Muhammad,  and  in  this  he  has  been  followed  by  the 
Wahhabites  alone  among  moderns  ;  he  limited  him- 
self to  Qur'an  and  prophetic  usage. 

In  another  point  also,  he  diverged.  Ash-Shafi'i 
had  evidently  exercised  a  very  great  personal  influence 
upon  his  followers.  All  looked  up  to  him  and  were 
prepared  to  swear  to  his  words.  So  there  grew  up  a 
tendency  for  a  scholar  to  take  a  thing  upon  the  word 
of  his  master.  "  Ash-Shafi'i  taught  so ;  I  am  a 
Shafi'ite  and  I  hold  so."  This,  too,  Da'ud  utterly  re- 
jected. The  scholar  must  examine  the  proofs  for  him- 
self and  form  his  own  opinion.  But  he  had  another 
peculiarity,  and  one  which  gained  him  the  name  of 
literalist.  Everything,  Qur'an  and  tradition,  must  be 
taken  in  the  most  exact  sense,  however  absurd  it 
might  be.  Of  course,  to  have  gone  an  inch  beyond 
the  very  first  meaniiig  of  the  words  would  have  been 
to  stray  in  the  direction  of  analogy.  Yet,  as  fate 
would  have  it,  to  analogy,  more  or  less,  he  had  in 
the  end  to  come.  The  inexorable  law  that  the  lim- 
ited cannot  bound  the  unlimited  was  proved  again. 
"Analogy  is  like  carrion,"  confessed  a  very  much 
earlier  traditionist,  "  when  there  is  nothing  else  you 
eat  it."  Da'ud  tried  to  make  his  meal  more  palata- 
ble by  a  change  in  name.  He  called  it  a  proof 
{dalil)  instead  of  a  source  (a-s?)  ;  but  what  difference 
of  idea  he  involved  in  that  it  is  hard  to  determine. 
This  brought  him   to  the  doctrine  of  cause,  already 


110  DEVELOPMENT   OP  JURISPRUDENCE 

mentioned.  Were  we  at  liberty  to  seek  the  cause  of 
a  divine  word  or  action  and  lead  our  "  proof  "  from 
that  ?  If  the  cause  was  directly  stated,  then  Da'ud 
held  that  we  must  regard  it  as  having  been  the  cause 
in  this  case ;  but  we  were  not  at  liberty,  he  added,  to 
look  for  it,  or  on  it,  as  cause  in  any  other  case. 

It  is  evident  that  here  we  have  to  do  with  an  im- 
possible man  and  school,  and  so  the  Muslim  world 
found.  Most  said  roundly  that  it  was  illegal  to  per- 
mit a  Zahirite  to  act  as  judge,  on  much  the  same 
grounds  that  objection  to  circumstantial  evidence  will 
throw  out  a  man  now  as  juror.  If  they  had  been  using 
modern  language,  they  would  have  said  that  it  was 
because  he  was  a  hopeless  crank.  Yet  the  Zahirite 
school  lasted  for  centuries  and  drew  long  conse- 
quences, historical  and  theological,  for  which  there  is 
no  space  here.  It  never  held  rank  as  an  acknowl- 
edged school  of  Muslim  law. 

We  now  come  to  the  last  of  the  four  schools,  and 
it,  strange  as  its  origin  was,  need  not  detain  us  long. 
The  Zahirite  reaction  had  failed  through  its  very  ex- 
tremeness. It  was  left  to  a  dead  man  and  a  devoted 
Shafi'ite  to  head  the  last  attack  upon  the  school  of  his 
master.  Ahmad  ibn  Hanbal  was  a  theologian  of  the 
first  rank;  he  made  no  claim  to  be  a  constructive 
lawyer.  His  Musnad  has  already  been  dealt  with. 
It  is  an  immense  collection  of  some  thirty  thousand 
traditions,  but  these  are  not  even  arranged  for  le- 
gal purposes.  He  suffered  terribly  for  the  orthodox 
faith  in  the  rationalist  persecution  under  the  Khalifa 
al-Ma'mun,  and  his  sufferings  gained  him  the  posi- 
tion of  a  saint.     But  he  never  dreamed  of  forming  a 


PRINCIPLES    OF    UNITY   AND  VARIETY        111 

school,  least  of  all  in  opposition  to  his  master,  ash- 
Shafi'i.  He  died  in  241,  and  after  his  death  his 
disciples  drew  together  and  the  foui'th  school  was 
founded.  It  was  simply  reactionary  and  did  not 
make  progress  in  any  way.  It  minimized  agreement 
and  analogy  and  tended  toward  literal  interpretation. 
As  might  be  expected  from  its  origin,  its  history  has 
been  one  of  violence,  of  persecution  and  counter- 
persecution,  of  insurrection  and  riot.  Again  and 
again  the  streets  of  Baghdad  ran  blood  from  its 
excesses.  It  has  now  the  smallest  following  of  the 
four  surviving  schools. 

There  is  no  need  to  pursue  this  history  further. 
With  ash-Shafi'i  the  great  development  of  Muslim  ju- 
risprudence closes.  Legislation,  equity,  legal  fiction 
have  done  their  parts  ;  the  hope  for  the  future  lay,  and 
lies,  in  the  principle  of  the  agreement.  The  common- 
sense  of  the  Muslim  community,  working  through 
that  expression  of  catholicity,  has  set  aside  in  the 
past  even  the  undoubted  letter  of  the  Qur'an,  and  in 
the  future  will  still  further  break  the  grasp  of  that 
dead  hand.  It  is  the  principle  of  unity  in  Islam. 
But  there  is  a  principle  of  variety  as  well.  The  four 
schools  of  law  whose  origin  has  been  traced  are  all 
equally  valid  and  their  decisions  equally  sacred  in 
Muslim  eyes.  The  believer  may  belong  to  any  one 
of  these  which  he  chooses  ;  he  must  belong  to  one  ; 
and  when  he  has  chosen  his  school,  he  accepts  it  and 
its  rules  to  the  uttermost.  Yet  he  does  not  cast  out  as 
heretics  the  followers  of  the  other  schools.  In  every 
chapter  their  codes  differ  more  or  less ;  but  each 
school  bears  with  the  others ;  sometimes,  it  may  be, 


112  DEVELOPMENT   OF   JURISPRUDENCE 

with  a  superior  tone,  but  still  bears.  This  liberty  of 
variety  in  unity  is  again  undoubtedly  due  to  the 
agreement.  It  has  expressed  itself,  as  it  often  does, 
in  apocryphal  traditions  from  the  Prophet,  the  last 
rag  of  respect  left  to  the  traditionist  school.  Thus 
we  are  told  that  the  Prophet  said,  "  The  disagree- 
ment of  My  People  is  a  Mercy  from  God."  This 
supplements  and  completes  the  other  equally  apocry- 
phal but  equally  important  tradition  :  "  My  People 
will  never  agree  upon  an  error." 

But  there  is  a  third  principle  at  work  which  we 
cannot  view  with  the  same  favor.  As  said  above, 
every  Muslim  must  attach  himself  to  a  legal  school, 
and  may  choose  any  one  of  these  four.  But  once  he 
has  chosen  his  school  he  is  absolutely  bound  by 
the  decisions  and  rules  of  that  school.  This  is  the 
principle  against  which  the  Zahirites  protested,  but 
their  protest,  the  only  bit  of  sense  they  ever  showed, 
was  in  vain.  The  result  of  its  working  throughout  cen- 
turies has  been  that  now  no  one — except  from  a  spirit 
of  historical  curiosity — ever  dreams  of  going  back  from 
the  text -books  of  the  present  day  to  the  works  of  the 
older  masters.  Further,  such  an  attempt  to  get  be- 
hind the  later  commentaries  would  not  be  permitted. 
We  have  comment  upon  comment  upon  comment, 
abstract  of  this  and  expansion  of  that ;  but  each 
hangs  by  his  predecessor  and  dares  not  go  another 
step  backward.  The  great  masters  of  the  four  schools 
settled  the  broad  principles  ;  they  were  authorities  of 
the  first  degree  {mujtahidim  nuUlaq),  second  to  Mu- 
hammad in  virtue  of  his  inspiration  only.  Second, 
came  the  masters  who  had  authority  within  the  sep- 


THE   CANON    AND    CIVIL   CODES  113 

arate  schools  {mtijtahldun  fi-l-madhahib)  to  determine 
the  questions  that  arose  there.  Third,  masters  of 
still  lesser  rank  for  minor  points  {inujtahidim  hil- 
faiwa.  And  so  the  chain  runs  on.  The  possibility 
of  a  new  legal  school  arising  or  of  any  considerable 
change  among  these  existing  schools  is  flatly  denied. 
Every  legist  now  has  his  place  and  degree  of  liberty 
fixed,  and  he  must  be  content. 

These  three  principles,  then,  of  catholic  unity  and 
its  ability  to  make  and  abrogate  laws,  of  the  liberty 
of  diversity  in  that  nnity,  and  of  blind  subjection  to 
the  past  within  that  diversity,  these  three  principles 
must  be  our  hope  and  fear  for  the  Muslim  peoples. 
What  that  future  will  be  none  can  tell.  The  grasp 
of  the  dead  hand  of  Islam  is  close,  but  its  grip  at 
many  points  has  been  forced  to  relax.  Yery  early, 
as  has  already  been  pointed  out,  the  canon  law  had 
to  give  way  to  the  will  of  the  sovereign,  and  ground 
once  lost  it  has  never  regained.  Now,  in  every 
Muslim  country,  except  perhaps  the  Wahhabite  state 
in  central  Arabia,  there  are  two  codes  of  law  admin- 
istered by  two  separate  courts.  The  one  judges  by 
this  canon  law  and  has  cognizance  of  what  we  may 
call  private  and  family  affairs,  marriage,  divorce,  in- 
heritance. Its  judges,  at  whose  head  in  Turkey 
stands  the  Shaykh  al-Islam,  a  dignity  first  created  by 
the  Ottoman  Sultan  Muhammad  II  in  1453,  after 
the  capture  of  Constantinople,  also  give  advice  to 
those  who  consult  them  on  such  personal  matters  as 
details  of  the  ritual  law,  the  law  of  oaths  and  vows, 
etc.  The  other  court  knows  no  law  except  the  cus- 
tom of  the  country  {iirf,  ado)  and  the  will  of  the 


114  DEVELOPMENT   OF   JUIIISPRUDENCE 

ruler,  expressed  often  in  what  are  called  Qanuns, 
statutes.  Thus,  in  Turkey  at  the  present  day,  be- 
sides the  codices  of  canon  law,  there  is  an  accepted 
and  authoritative  corpus  of  such  Qanuns.  It  is  based 
on  the  Code  Napoleon  and  administered  by  courts 
under  the  Minister  of  Justice.  This  is  the  nearest 
approach  in  Islam  to  the  development  by  statute, 
which  comes  last  in  Sir  Henry  Maine's  analysis  of 
the  growth  of  law.  The  court  guided  by  these  Qanuns 
decides  all  matters  of  public  and  criminal  law,  all 
affairs  between  man  and  man.  Such  is  the  legal 
situation  throughout  the  whole  Muslim  world,  from 
Sulu  to  the  Atlantic  and  from  Africa  to  China.  The 
canon  lawyers,  on  their  side,  have  never  admitted 
this  to  be  anything  but  flat  usurpation.  There  have 
not  failed  some  even  who  branded  as  heretics  and 
unbelievers  those  who  took  any  part  in  such  courts 
of  the  world  and  the  devil.  They  look  back  to  the 
good  old  days  of  the  rightly  guided  Khalifas,  when 
there  was  but  one  law  in  Islam,  and  forward  to  the 
days  of  the  Mahdi  when  that  law  will  be  restored. 
There,  between  a  dead  past  and  a  hopeless  future,  we 
may  leave  them.  The  real  future  is  not  theirs.  Law 
is  greater  than  lawyers,  and  it  works  in  the  end  for 
justice  and  life. 

Finally,  it  may  be  well  to  notice  an  important  and 
necessary  modification  which  holds  as  to  the  above 
statement  that  a  Muslim  may  choose  any  one  of  the 
four  schools  and  may  then  follow  its  rules.  As  might 
be  expected,  geographical  influences  weigh  over- 
whelmingly in  this  choice.  Certain  countries  are 
Hanifite  or  Shafi'ite ;  in  each,  adherents  of  the  other 


DISTRIBUTION   OF   SCHOOLS  115 

sects  are  rare.  This  geographical  position  may  be 
given  roughly  as  follows :  central  Asia,  northern  India, 
and  the  Turks  everywhere  are  Hanifite.  Lower  Egypt, 
Syria,  southern  India  and  the  Malay  Archipelago  are 
Shafi'ite.  Upper  Egypt  and  North  Africa  west  of 
Egypt  are  Malikite.  Practically,  only  the  Wahha- 
bites  in  central  Arabia  are  Hanbalites.  Further,  the 
position  holds  in  Islam  that  the  country,  as  a  whole, 
follows  the  legal  creed  of  its  ruler,  just  as  it  follows 
his  religion.  It  is  not  only  cuius  regio  eius  reUgio, 
but  cuius  religio  eius  lex.  Again  and  again,  a  revolu- 
tion in  the  state  has  driven  one  legal  school  from 
power  and  installed  another.  Yet  the  situation  oc- 
curs sometimes  that  a  sovereign  finds  his  people  di- 
vided into  two  parties,  each  following  a  different  rite, 
and  he  then  recognizes  both  by  appointing  Qadis  be- 
longing to  both,  and  enforcing  the  decisions  of  these 
Qadis.  Thus,  at  Zanzibar,  at  present,  there  are  eight 
Ibadite  judges  and  two  Shafi'ite,  all  appointed  by  the 
Sultan  and  backed  by  his  authority.  On  the  othei 
hand,  the  Turkish  government,  ever  since  it  felt  itself 
strong  enough,  has  thrown  the  full  weight  of  its  in- 
fluence on  the  Hanifite  side.  In  almost  all  countries 
under  its  rule  it  appoints  Hanifite  judges  only ;  valid 
legal  decisions  can  be  pronounced  only  according  to 
that  rite.  The  private  needs  of  non-Hanifites  are 
met  by  the  appointment  of  salaried  Muftis — givers  of 
fahvcis,  or  legal  opinions — of  the  other  rites. 

In  the  above  sketch  there  have  been  of  necessity 
two  considerable  omissions.  The  one  is  of  Shi'ite 
and  the  other  of  Ibadite  law.  Neither  seems  of 
sufficient  importance  to  call  for  separate  treatment. 


116  DEVELOPMENT   OF   JURISPRUDENCE 

The  legal  system  of  tlie  Slii'ites  is  derived  from  that 
of  the  so-called  Sunuites  aud  differs  in  details  only. 
We  have  seen  already  (p.  38)  that  the  Shi'ites  still 
have  Mujtahids  who  are  not  bound  to  the  words  of  a 
master,  but  can  give  decisions  on  their  own  responsi- 
bility. These  seem  to  have  in  their  hands  the  teach- 
ing power  which  strictly  belongs  only  to  the  Hidden 
Imam.  They  thus  represent  the  principle  of  author- 
ity which  is  the  governing  conception  of  the  Shi'a. 
The  Sunnites,  on  the  other  hand,  have  reached  the 
point  of  recognizing  that  it  is  the  People  of  Muham- 
mad as  a  whole  which  rules  through  its  agreement. 
In  another  point  the  Shi'ite  conception  of  authority 
affects  their  legal  system.  They  utterly  reject  the 
idea  of  co-ordinate  schools  of  law  ;  to  the  doctrine  of 
the  varying  {ihhtilaf)  as  it  is  called,  and  the  liberty 
of  diversity  which  lies  in  it,  they  oppose  the  authority 
of  the  Imam.  There  can  be  only  one  truth  and  there 
can  be  no  trifling  with  it  even  in  details.  Among  the 
Slii'ites  of  the  Zaydite  sect  this  was  affected  also  by 
their  philosophical  studies  and  a  philosophical  doc- 
trine of  the  unity  of  truth ;  but  to  the  Imamites  it  is 
an  authoritative  necessity  and  not  one  of  thought. 
Thus  on  two  important  points  the  Slii'ites  lack  the 
possibility  of  freedom  and  development  which  is  to 
be  found  with  the  Sunnites.  Of  the  jurisprudence  of 
the  Ibadites  we  know  comparatively  little.  A  full 
examination  of  Ibadite  fiqli  would  be  of  the  high- 
est interest,  as  the  separation  of  its  line  of  descent 
goes  far  back  behind  the  formation  of  any  of  the 
orthodox  systems  and  it  must  have  been  codified  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent  by  Abd  Allah  ibn  Ibad  himself. 


IBADITES  117 

Its  basis  appears  to  be  three-fold,  Qur'an,  prophetic 
usage,  agreement — naturally  that  of  the  Ibadite  com- 
munity. There  is  no  mention  of  analogy,  and  tradi- 
tions seem  to  have  been  used  sparingly  and  criticall}^ 
Qur'an  bore  the  principal  emphasis.  See  above, 
(p.  26)  for  the  Ibadite  position  on  the  form  of  the 
state  and  on  the  nature  of  its  headship. 


PART   III 
CHAPTEE  I 

The  three  principles  in  the  development ;  first  religious  question- 
ings ;  Murji'ites,  Kliarijites,  Qadarites ;  influence  of  Christi- 
anity ;  the  Umayyads  and  Abbasids ;  the  Mu'tazilites ;  the 
Qualities  of  God;  the  Vision  of  God;  the  creation  of  the 
Qur'an. 

Befoee  entering  upon  a  consideration  of  tlie  devel- 
opment of  the  theology  of  Islam,  it  will  be  well  to 
mark  clearly  the  three  principles  which  run  continu- 
ously through  that  development,  which  conditioned 
it  for  evil  and  for  good  and  which  are  still  working 
in  it.  In  dealing  with  jurisprudence  and  with  the 
theory  of  the  state,  we  have  already  seen  abundantly 
how  false  is  the  current  idea  that  Islam  has  ceased 
to  grow  and  has  no  hope  of  future  development.  The 
organism  of  Islam,  like  every  other  organism,  has 
periods  of  rest  when  it  appears  to  have  reached  a 
cul  de  sac  and  to  have  outlived  its  life.  But  after 
these  periods  come  others  of  renewed  quickening  and 
its  vital  energy  pours  itself  forth  again  alter  et  idem. 
In  the  state,  we  saw  hoAV  the  old  realms  passed  into 
decrepitude  and   decay,  but  new  ones  rose  to  take 

their  places.     The  despotism  by  the  grace  of  God  of 

119 


120  THEOLOGY 

formal  Islam  was  tempered  by  the  sacred  right  of 
insurrection  and  revolution,  and  the  People  of  Mu- 
hammad, in  spite  of  kings  and  princes,  asserted,  from 
time  to  time,  its  nnquenchable  vitality. 

In  theology  the  spirit  breathes  through  single 
chosen  men  more  than  through  the  masses ;  and,  in 
consequence,  our  treatment  of  it  will  take  biographi- 
cal form  wherever  our  knowledge  renders  that  pos- 
sible. 

But  whether  we  have  men  or  naked  movements,  the 
begetters  of  which  are  names  to  us  or  less,  three 
threads  are  woven  distinctly  through  the  web  of  Mus- 
lim religious  thought.  There  is  tradition  {naqi) ;  there 
is  reason  {aql)  ;  and  there  is  the  unveiling  of  the  mys- 
tic (kashf).  They  were  in  the  tissue  of  Muhammad's 
brain  and  they  have  been  in  his  church  since  he  died. 
Now  one  would  be  most  prominent,  now  another,  ac- 
cording to  the  thinker  of  the  time  ;  but  all  were  pres- 
ent to  some  degree.  Tradition  in  its  strictest  form 
lives  now  only  with  the  Wahhabites  and  the  Brother- 
hood of  as-Sanusi ;  reason  has  become  a  scholastic 
hand-maid  of  theology  except  among  the  modern 
Indian  Mu'tazilites,  whom  orthodox  Islam  would  no 
more  accept  as  Muslims  than  a  Trinitarian  of  the 
"Westminster  confession  would  give  the  name  of 
Christian  to  a  Unitarian  of  the  left  wing ;  the  inner 
light  of  the  mystic  has  assumed  many  forms,  running 
from  plainest  pantheism  to  mere  devout  ecstasy. 

But  in  the  church  of  Muhammad  they  are  all  work- 
ing still;  and  the  catholicity  of  Islam,  in  spite  of  zeal- 
ots, persecutions  and  counter-jjersecutions,  has  at- 
tained here,  too,  as  in  law,  a  liberty  of  variety  in  unity. 


THE   THREE   PRINCIPLES  121 

Two  of  tlie  principles  we  have  met  already  in  the 
students  of  Jiadifh  and  of  speculative  law.  The  Han- 
balites  maintained  in  theology  their  devotion  to  tradi- 
tion ;  they  fought  for  centuries  all  independent  think- 
ing which  sought  to  rise  above  what  the  fathers  had 
told ;  they  fought  even  scholastic  theology  of  the 
strictest  type  and  would  be  content  with  nothing  but 
the  rehearsal  of  the  old  dogmas  in  the  old  forms  ;  they 
fought,  too,  the  mystical  life  in  all  its  phases.  On  the 
other  hand,  Abu  Hanifa  was  tinged  with  rationalism 
and  speculation  in  theology  as  in  law,  and  his  follow- 
ers have  walked  in  his  path.  Even  the  mystical  light 
has  been  touched  in  our  view  of  the  theory  of  the 
state.  It  has  flourished  most  among  the  Shi'ites, 
who  are  driven  to  seek  and  to  find  an  inner  meaning 
under  the  plain  word  of  the  Qur'an,  and  whose  devo- 
tion to  Ali  and  his  house  and  to  their  divine  mission 
has  kept  alive  the  thought  of  a  continuous  speaking 
of  God  to  mankind  and  of  an  exalting  of  mankind 
into  the  presence  of  God.  It  is  for  the  student,  then, 
to  watch  and  hold  fast  these  three  guiding  threads. 

The  development  of  Muslim  theology,  like  that  of 
jurisprudence,  could  not  begin  till  after  the  death  of 
Muhammad.  So  long  as  he  lived  and  received  infal- 
lible revelations  in  solution  of  all  questions  of  faith 
or  usage  that  might  come  up,  it  is  obvious  that  no 
system  of  theology  could  be  formed  or  even  thought 
of.  Traditions,  too,  which  have  reached  us,  even 
show  him  setting  his  face  against  all  discussions  of 
dogma  and  repeating  again  and  again,  in  answer  to 
metaphysical   and  theological  questions,  the   crude 


122  THEOLOGY 

anthropomorpliisms  of  tlie  Qur'an.     But  these  ques- 
tions and  answers  are  probably  forgeries  of  the  later 
traditional  school,  shadows  of  future  warfare  thrown 
back  upon  the  screen  of  the  patriarchal  age.     Again, 
in  the  first  twenty  or  thirty  years  after  Muhammad's 
death,  the  Muslims  were  too  much  occupied  with  the 
propagation  of  their  faith  to  think  what  that  faith 
exactly  was.     Thus,  it  seems  that  the  questioning 
spirit  in  this  direction  was  aroused  comparatively 
late  and  remained  for  some  time  on  what  might  be 
called  a  private  basis.     Individual  men  had  their  in- 
dividual views,  but  sects  did  not  quickly  arise,  and 
when  they  did  were  vague  and  hard  to  define  in  their 
positions.     It  may  be  said,  broadly,  that  everything 
which  has  reached  us  about  the  early  Muslim  heresies 
is  uncertain,  confused  and  unsatisfactory.     Names, 
dates,  influences  and  doctrines  are  all  seen  through 
a  haze,  and  nothing  more  than  an  approximation  to 
an  outline  can  be  attempted.  Yague  stories  are  handed 
down  of  the  early   questionings   and  disputings  of 
certain  alil-al-ahioa,  "  people  of  wandering  desires," 
a  name  singularly  descriptive  of  the  always  flighty 
and  sceptical  Arabs ;  of  how  they  compared  Script- 
ure with  Scripture  and  got  up  theological    debates, 
splitting  points  and  defining  issues,  to  great  scandal 
and  troubling  of  spirit  among  the  simpler-minded 
pious.     These  were  not  yet  heretics ;  they  were  the 
first  investigators  and  systematizers. 

Yet  two  sects  loom  up  through  the  mist  and  their 
existence  can  be  tolerably  conditioned  through  the 
historical  facts  and  philosophical  necessities  of  the 
time.     The  one  is  that  of  the  Murji'ites,  and  the  other 


MURJl'lTES  123 

of  the  Qadarites.     A  Murji'ite  is  literally  "one  who  . 
defers  or  postpones,"  in  this  case  postpones  judgment  ' 
until  it  is  pronounced  by  God  on  the  Day  of  Judg- 
ment.    They  arose  as  a  sect  during  and  out  of  the 
civil  war  between   the  Shi'ites,  the  Kharijites  and 
the  Umayyads.    All  these  parties  claimed  to  be  Mus- 
lims, and  most  of  them  claimed  that  they  were  the 
only  true    Muslims    and  that  the   others   were  un- 
believers.    This  was  especially  the  attitude   of  the 
Shi'ites  and  Kharijites  toward  the  Umayyads;    to 
them,  the  Umayyads,  as  we  have  seen  already,  were 
godless  heathen  who  professed  Islam,  but  oppressed 
and  slaughtered  the  true  saints  of  God.     The  Mur- 
ji'ites,  on  the  other  hand,  worked  out  a  view  on  which 
they  could  still  support  the  Umayyads  without  homo- 
logating all  their  actions  and  condemning  all  their 
opponents.     The  Umayyads,  they  held,  were  de  facto 
the  rulers    of   the   Muslim   state ;   fealty  had   been 
sworn  to  them  and  they  confessed  the  Unity  of  God 
and   the    apostleship   of  the    Prophet.     Thus,  they 
were  not  polytheists,   and  there  is  no  sin  that  can 
possibly  be   compared  with    the    sin    of   polytheism 
(shirk).     It  was,  therefore,  the  duty  of  all  Muslims  to 
acknowledge  their  sovereignty  and  to  postpone  until 
the  secrets  of  the  Last  Day  all  judgment  or  condemna- 
tion of  any  sins  they  might  have  committed.     Sins 
less  than  polytheism  could  justify  no  one  in  rising  in 
revolt  against  them  and  in  breaking  the  oath  of  fealty. 
Such  seems  to  have  been  the  origin  of  the  Murji'ites, 
and  it  was  the  origin  also  of  the  theory  of  the  ac- 
complished fact  in  the  state,  of  which  we  have  had  to 
take  account  several  times.     Thus,  between  the  fa- 


124  THEOLOGY 

naticdl  venerators  of  tlie  canon  law,  to  whom  all  the 
Khalifas,  after  the  first  four,  were  an   abomination, 
and  the  purely  worldly  lawyers  of  the  court  party, 
there  came  a  group  of  i^ious  theologians  who  taught 
that  the  good  of  the  Muslim   community  required 
obedience  to  the  ruler  of  the  time,  even  though  his 
personal  unworthiness  were  plain.    As  a  consequence, 
success  can  legitimate  anything  in  the  Muslim  state. 
But  with  the  passing  away  of  the  situation  which 
gave  rise  to  Murji'ism,  it  itself  changed  from  politics 
to  theology.     As  a  political  party  it  had  opposed  the 
political  puritanism  of  the  Kharijites ;  it  now  came  to 
oppose  the   uncompromising   spirit  in  which  these 
damned  all  who  differed  from  them  even  in  details 
and  brandished  the  terrors  of  the  wrath  of  God  over 
their  opponents.     It  is  true  that  this  came  natural  to 
Islam.     The  earlier  Muslims  seem  in  general  to  have 
been  oppressed  by  a  singularly  gloomy  fatalism.     To 
use  modern  theological  language,  they  labored  un- 
der a  terrible  consciousness  of   sin.     They  viewed 
the  world  as  an  evil  temptress,  seducing  men  from 
heavenly    things.      Their   lives  were   hedged   about 
with  sins,  great  and  little,  and  each  deserved  the 
eternal  wrath  of  God.     The  recollection  of  their  lat- 
ter end  they  kept  ever  before  them  and  the  terrors 
that  it  would  bring,  for  they  felt  that  no  amount  of 
faith  in  God  and  His  Prophet  could  save  them  in  the 
judgment  to  come.     The  roots  of  this  run  far  back. 
Before  the  time  of  Muhammad  and  at  his  time  there 
were  among  the  Arab  tribes,  scattered  here  and  there, 
many  men  who  felt  a  profound  dissatisfaction  with 
heathenism,  its  doctrines  and  religious  rites.     The 


THE   WRATH   OF   GOD   LY   ISLAM  125 

conception  of  God  and  the  burden  of  life  pressed 
heavily  upon  them.  They  saw  men  pass  away  and 
descend  into  the  grave,  and  they  asked  whither  they 
had  gone  and  what  had  become  of  them.  The  thought 
of  this  fleeting,  transitory  life  and  of  the  ocean  of 
darkness  and  mystery  that  lies  around  it,  drove  them 
away  to  seek  truth  in  solitude  and  the  deserts.  They 
were  called  Hanifs — the  word  is  of  very  doubtful 
derivation — and  Muhammad  himself,  in  the  early 
part  of  his  career,  reckoned  himself  one  of  them.  But 
we  have  evidence  from  heathen  Arab  poetry  that  these 
Hanifs  were  regarded  as  much  the  same  as  Christian 
monks,  and  that  the  term  haiiifwsiS  used  as  a  syn- 
onym for  rahib,  monk. 

And,  in  truth,  the  very  soul  of  Islam  sprang  from 
these  solitary  hermits,  scattered  here  and  there 
throughout  the  desert,  consecrating  their  lives  to 
God,  and  fleeing  from  the  wrath  to  come.  Even  in 
pre-Islamic  Arabic  poetry  we  feel  how  strong  was 
the  impression  made  on  the  Arab  mind  by  the  gaunt, 
weird  men  with  their  endless  watchings  and  night 
prayers.  Again  and  again  there  is  allusion  to  the 
lamp  of  the  hermit  shining  through  the  darkness,  and 
we  have  pictures  of  the  caravan  or  of  the  solitary 
traveller  on  the  night  journey  cheered  and  guided  by 
its  glimmer.  These  Christian  hermits  and  the  long 
deserted  ruins  telling  of  old,  forgotten  tribes — judged 
and  overthrown  by  God,  as  the  Arabs  held  and  hold — 
that  lie  throughout  the  Syrian  waste  and  along  the 
caravan  routes  were  the  two  things  that  most  stirred 
the  imagination  of  Muhammad  and  went  to  form  his 
faith.     To  Muhammad,  and  to  the  Semite  always,  the 


126  THEOLOGY 

wliole  of  life  was  but  a  long  procession  from  the 
great  deep  to  the  great  deep  again.  Where  are  the 
kings  and  rulers  of  the  earth  ?  Where  are  the  peoples 
that  were  mighty  in  their  day  ?  The  hand  of  God 
smote  them  and  they  are  not.  There  is  naught  real  in 
the  world  but  God.  From  Him  we  are,  and  unto 
Him  we  return.  There  is  nothing  for  man  but  to 
fear  and  worship.  The  world  is  deceitful  and  makes 
sport  of  them  that  trust  it. 

Such  is  the  oversong  of  all  Muslim  thought,  the 
faith  to  which  the  Semite  ever  returns  in  the  end. 
To  this  the  later  Murji'ites  opposed  a  doctrine  of 
Faith,  which  was  Pauline  in  its  sweep.  Faith,  they 
declared,  saved,  and  Faith  alone.  If  the  sinner  be- 
lieved in  God  and  His  Prophet  he  would  not  remain 
in  the  fire.  The  Kharijites,  on  the  other  hand,  held 
that  the  sinner  who  died  unrepentant  would  remain 
therein  eternally,  even  though  he  had  confessed  Is- 
lam with  his  lips.  The  unrepentant  sinner,  they 
considered,  could  not  be  a  believer  in  the  true  sense. 
This  is  still  the  Ibadite  position,  and  from  it  devel- 
oped one  of  the  most  important  controversies  of  Is- 
lam as  to  the  precise  nature  of  faith.  Some  extreme 
Murji'ites  held  that  faith  (iman)  was  a  confession  in 
the  heart,  private  intercourse  with  God,  as  opposed 
to  Islam,  public  confession  with  the  lips.  Thus,  one 
could  be  a  believer  {miimin),  and  outwardly  confess 
Judaism  or  Christianity ;  to  be  a  professed  Muslim 
w^as  not  necessary.  This  is  like  the  doctrine  of  the 
Imamites,  called  taqiya,  that  it  is  allowable  in  time 
of  stress  to  dissemble  one's  religious  views ;  and  it 
is  worth  noticing  that  Jahm  ibn  Saf  wan  (killed,  131  ?), 


QADARITES  127 

one  of  these  extreme  Murji'ites,  was  a  Persian  pros- 
elyte in  rebellion  against  the  Arab  rule,  and  of  the 
loosest  religious  conduct.  But  these  Antinomians 
were  no  more  Muslims  than  the  Anabaptists  of  Mun- 
ster  had  a  claim  to  be  Christians.  The  other  wing 
of  the  Murji'ites  is  represented  by  Abu  Hanifa,  who 
held  that  faith  {iinan)  is  acknowledgment  with  the 
tongue  as  well  as  the  heart  and  that  works  are  a  neces-^ 
sary  supplement.  This  is  little  different  from  the 
orthodox  position  which  grew  up,  that  persuasion, 
confession,  and  works  made  up  faith.  When  Murji- 
ism  dropped  out  of  existence  as  a  sect  it  left  as  its 
contribution  to  Islam  a  distinction  between  great  and 
little  sins  {kahiras,  saghiras),  and  the  position  that  even 
great  sins,  if  not  involving  polytheism  (shirk),  would 
not  exclude  the  believer  forever  from  the  Garden. 

The  second  sect,  that  of  Qadarites,  had  its  origin  i 
in  a  philosophical  necessity  of  the  human  mind.  A  | 
perception  of  the  contradiction  between  man's  con- 
sciousness of  freedom  and  responsibility,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  absolute  rule  and  predestination  of 
God,  on  the  other,  is  the  usual  beginning  of  the  think- 
ing life,  both  in  individuals  and  in  races.  It  was  so 
in  Islam.  In  theology  as  in  law,  Muhammad  had 
been  an  opportunist  pure  and  simple.  On  the  one 
hand,  his  Allah  is  the  absolute  Semitic  despot  who 
guides  aright  and  leads  astray,  who  seals  up  the 
hearts  of  men  and  opens  them  again,  who  is  mighty 
over  all.  On  the  other  hand,  men  are  exhorted  to 
repentance,  and  punishment  is  threatened  against 
them  if  they  remain  hardened  in  their  unbelief.  All 
these  phases  of  a  wandering  and  intensely  subjective 


128  THEOLOGY 

mind,  wliicli  lived  only  in  the  perception  of  the  mo- 
ment, appear  in  the  Qur'an.  Muhammad  was  a 
poet  rather  than  a  theologian  ;  just  as  he  was  a  proph- 
et rather  than  a  legislator.  As  soon,  then,  as  the 
Muslims  paused  in  their  career  of  conquest  and  be- 
gan to  think  at  all,  they  thought  of  this.  Naturally, 
so  long  as  they  were  fighting  in  the  Path  of  God,  it 
was  the  conception  of  God's  absolute  sovereignty 
which  most  appealed  to  them ;  by  it  their  fates  were 
fixed,  and  they  charged  without  fear  the  ranks  of  the 
unbelievers.  In  these  earliest  times,  the  fatalistic 
passages  bore  most  stress  and  the  others  were  ex- 
plained away.  This  helped,  at  least,  to  bring  it 
about  that  the  party  which  in  time  came  to  profess 
the  freedom  of  man's  will,  began  and  ended  as  an 
heretical  sect.  But  it  only  helped,  and  we  must  never 
lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  eventual  victory  in  Is- 
lam of  the  absolute  doctrine  of  God's  eternal  decree 
was  the  victory  of  the  more  fundamental  of  Muham- 
mad's conflicting  conceptions.  The  other  had  been 
much  more  a  campaigning  expedient. 

This  sect  of  Qadarites,  whose  origin  we  have 
been  conditioning,  derived  its  name  from  their  posi- 
tion that  a  man  possessed  qadar,  or  power,  over  his 
actions.  One  of  the  first  of  them  was  a  certain 
Ma'bad  al-Juhani,  who  paid  for  his  heresy  with  his 
life  in  a.h.  80.  Historians  tell  that  he  with  Ata  ibn 
Yassar,  another  of  similar  opinions,  came  one  day  to 
the  celebrated  ascetic,  al-Hasan  al-Basri  (d.  110), 
and  said,  "  O  Abu  Sa'id,  those  kings  shed  the  blood 
of  the  Muslims,  and  do  grievous  things  and  say 
that  their  works  are  by  the  decree  of  God."     To 


ORIGIN   OF   MU'TAZILITES  129 

this  al-Hasan  replied,  "The  enemies  of  God  lie." 
The  story  is  only  important  as  showing  how  the 
times  and  their  changes  were  widening  men's 
thoughts.  Very  soon,  now,  we  come  from  these 
drifting  tendencies  to  a  formal  sect  with  a  formal 
secession  and  a  fixed  name.  The  Murji'ites  and 
the  Qadarites  melt  from  the  scene,  some  of  their 
tenets  pass  into  orthodox  Islam  ;  some  into  the  new 
sect. 

The  story  of  its  founding  again  connects  with  the 
outstanding  figure  of  al-Hasan  al-Basri.  He  seems 
to  have  been  the  chief  centre  of  the  religious  life  and 
movements  of  his  time  ;  his  pupils  appear  and  his  in- 
fluence shows  itself  in  all  the  later  schools.  Some- 
one came  to  him  as  he  sat  among  his  papils  and 
asked  what  his  view  was  between  the  conflicting 
Murji'ites  and  Wa'idites,  the  first  holding  that  the 
committer  of  a  great  sin,  if  he  had  faith,  was  not  an 
unbeliever,  was  to  be  accepted  as  a  Muslim  and  his 
case  left  in  the  hands  of  God ;  the  other  laying  more 
stress  upon  the  threats  {ivaHd)  in  the  Book  of  God 
and  teaching  that  the  committer  of  a  great  sin  could 
not  be  a  believer,  that  he  had,  ipso  facto,  abandoned 
the  true  faith,  must  go  into  the  Fire  and  abide  there. 
Before  the  master  could  reply,  one  of  his  pupils — ■ 
some  say  Amr  ibn  Ubayd  (d.  circ.  144),  others, 
Wasil  ibn  Ata  (d.  131) — broke  in  with  the  assertion 
of  an  intermediate  position.  Such  an  one  was  neither 
a  believer  nor  an  unbeliever.  Then  he  left  the  circle 
which  sat  round  the  master,  went  to  another  part 
of  the  mosque  and  began  to  develop  his  view  to 
those  who  gathered  round  him.     The  name  believer 


\/ 


130  THEOLOGY 

(mii'mm),  lie  taught,  was  a  term  of  praise,  and  an  evil- 
doer was  not  worthy  of  praise,  and  could  not  have  that 
name  applied  to  him.  But  he  was  not  an  unbeliever, 
either,  for  he  assented  to  the  faith.  If  he,  then,  died 
unrepentant,  he  must  abide  forever  in  the  Fire — for 
there  are  only  two  divisions  in  the  next  world, 
heaven  and  hell — but  his  torments  would  be  miti- 
gated on  account  of  his  faith.  The  position  to 
which  orthodox  Islam  eventually  came  was  that  a 
believer  could  commit  a  great  sin.  If  he  did  so,  and 
died  unrepentant,  he  went  to  hell ;  but  after  a  time 
would  be  permitted  to  enter  heaven.  Thus,  hell  be- 
came for  believers  .a  sort  of  purgatory.  On  this 
secession,  al-Hasan  only  said  '^ I'tazala  anna'' — 
He  has  seceded  from  us.  So  the  new  party  was 
called  the  Mu'tazila,  the  Secession.  That,  at  least,  is 
the  story,  which  may  be  taken  for  what  it  is  worth. 
The  fixed  facts  are  the  rise  at  the  beginning  of  the 
second  century  after  the  Hijra  of  a  tolerably  definite 
school  of  dissenters  from  the  traditional  ideas,  and 
their  application  of  reason  to  the  dogmas  of  the 
Qur'an. 

We  have  noted  already  the  influence  of  Christian- 
ity on  Muhammad  through  the  hermits  of  the  des- 
ert. From  it  sprang  the  asceticism  of  Islam  and 
that  asceticism  grew  and  developed  into  quietism 
and  thence  into  mysticism.  The  last  step  w^as  still 
in  the  future,  but  already  at  this  time  there  were 
wandering  monks  who  imitated  their  Christian  breth- 
ren in  the  wearing  of  a  coarse  woollen  frock  and  were 
thence  called  Sufis,  from  suf,  wool.  It  was  not  long 
before  Sufi  came  to  mean  mystic,  and  the  third  of  the 


INFLUENCE   OF  JOHN   OF  DAMASCUS  131 

three  great  threads  was  definitely  woven  into  the 
fabric  of  Muslim  thought.  But  that  was  not  the 
limit  of  Christian  influence.  Those  anchorites  in 
their  caves  and  huts  had  little  training  in  the  theol- 
ogy of  the  schools ;  the  dogmas  of  their  faith  were  of 
a  practical  simplicity.  But  in  the  development  of  the 
Muiji'ites  and  Qadarites  it  is  impossible  to  mistake 
the  workings  of  the  dialectic  refinements  of  Greek 
theology  as  developed  in  the  Byzantine  and  Syrian 
schools.  It  is  worth  notice,  too,  that,  while  the 
political  heresies  of  the  Shi'ites  and  Kharijites  held 
sway  mostly  in  Arabia,  Mesopotamia,  and  Persia, 
these  more  religious  heresies  seem  to  have  arisen  in 
Syria  first  and  especially  at  Damascus,  the  seat  of 
the  Umayyads. 

The  Umayyad  dynasty,  we  should  remember,  was 
in  many  ways  a  return  to  pre-Muslim  times  and  to 
an  easy  enjoyment  of  worldly  things  ;  it  was  a  rejec- 
tion of  the  yoke  of  Muhammad  in  all  but  form  and 
name.  The  fear  of  the  wrath  of  God  had  small  part 
with  the  most  of  them ;  sometimes  it  appeared  in  the 
form  of  an  insane  rebellion  and  defiance.  Further, 
as  Muslim  governments  always  have  done,  they 
sought  aid  in  their  task  of  governing  from  their  non- 
Muslim  subjects.  So  it  came  about  that  Sergius, 
the  father  of  Johannes  Damascenus,  was  treasurer 
under  them  and  that  after  his  death,  this  John  of 
Damascus  himself,  the  last  great  doctor  of  the  Greek 
Church  and  the  man  under  whose  hands  its  theology 
assumed  final  form,  became  wazir  and  held  that  post 
until  he  withdrew  from  the  Avorld  and  turned  to  the 
contemplative  life.     In  his  writings  and  in  those  of 


132  THEOLOGY 

his  pupil,  Theodorus  Abucara  (d.  a.d.  826),  there  are 
polemic  treatises  on  Islam,  cast  in  the  form  of  dis- 
cussions between  Christians  and  Muslims.  These 
represent,  there  can  be  little  doubt,  a  characteristic 
of  the  time.  The  close  agreement  of  Murji'ite  and 
Qadarite  ideas  with  those  formulated  and  defended 
by  John  of  Damascus  and  by  the  Greek  Church  gen- 
erally can  only  be  so  explained.  The  Murji'ite  re- 
jection of  eternal  punishment  and  emphasis  on  the 
goodness  of  God  and  His  love  for  His  creatures,  the 
Qadarite  doctrine  of  freewill  and  responsibility,  are 
to  be  explained  in  the  same  way  as  we  have  already 
explained  the  presence  of  sentences  in  the  Muslim 
Jiqh  which  seem  to  be  taken  bodily  from  the  Eoman 
codes.  In  this  case,  also,  Ave  are  not  to  think  of  the 
Muslim  divines  as  studying  the  writings  of  the  Greek 
fathers,  but  as  picking  up  ideas  from  them  in  practi- 
cal intercourse  and  controversy.  The  very  form  of 
the  tract  of  John  of  Damascus  is  significant,  "  When 
the  Saracen  says  to  you  such  and  such,  then  you  will 
reply.  .  .  ."  This,  as  a  whole,  is  a  subject 
which  calls  for  investigation,  but  so  far  it  is  clear 
that  the  influence  of  Greek  theology  on  Islam  can 
hardly  be  overestimated.  The  one  outstanding  fact 
of  the  enormous  emphasis  laid  by  both  on  the  doc- 
trine of  the  nature  of  God  and  His  attributes  is 
enough.  It  may  even  be  conjectured  that  the  harsher 
views  developed  by  western  Muslims,  and  especially 
by  the  theologians  of  Spain,  were  due,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  Augustinian  and  Koman  influence.  It  is, 
to  say  the  least,  a  curious  coincidence  that  Spanish 
Islam  never  took  kindly  to  metaphysical  or  scholas- 


INFLUENCES   AT   BAGHDAD  133 

tic  theology,  in  the  exact  sense,  but  gave  almost  all 
its  energy  to  canon  law. 

But  there  were  other  influences  to  come.  With 
the  fall  of  the  Umayyads  and  the  rise  of  the  Abba- 
sids,  the  intellectual  centre  of  the  empire  moved  to 
the  basin  of  the  Euj^hrates  and  the  Tigris.  The  story 
of  the  founding  of  Baghdad  there,  in  145,  we  have 
already  heard.  We  have  seen,  too,  that  the  victory 
of  the  Abbasids  was,  in  a  sense,  a  conquest  of  the 
Arabs  by  the  Persians.  Grcecia  capta  and  the  rest 
came  true  here ;  the  battles  of  al-Qadisiya  and  Naha- 
wand  were  avenged ;  Persian  ideas  and  Persian  re- 
ligion began  slowly  to  work  on  the  faith  of  Muham- 
mad. At  the  court  of  the  earliest  Abbasids  it  was 
fashionable  to  affect  a  little  free  thought.  People 
were  becoming  enlightened  and  played  with  philoso- 
phy and  science.  Greek  philosophy,  Zoroastrian- 
ism,  Manichseism,  the  old  heathenism  of  Harran, 
Judaism,  Christianity — all  were  in  the  air  and  mak- 
ing themselves  felt.  So  long  as  the  adherents  and 
teachers  of  these  took  them  in  a  purely  academic 
way,  were  good  subjects  and  made  no  trouble,  the 
earlier  Abbasids  encouraged  their  efforts,  gathered  in 
the  scientific  harvest,  paid  well  for  translations,  in- 
struments, and  investigations,  and  generally  posed  as 
patrons  of  progress. 

But  a  line  had  to  be  drawn  somewhere  and  drawn 
tightly.  The  victory  of  the  Abbasids  had  raised 
high  hopes  among  the  Persian  nationalists.  They 
had  thought  that  they  were  rallying  to  the  overthrow 
of  the  Arabs,  and  found,  when  all  was  done,  that 
they  had  got  only  another  Arab  dynasty.     So  revolts 


134  THEOLOGY 

had  begun  to  break  out  afresh,  and  now,  curiously 
enough,  they  were  of  a  marked  religious  character. 
They  were  an  expression  of  religious  sects,  Buddh- 
istic, Zoroastrian,  Manichasan,  and  parties  with  pro- 
phetic leaders  of  their  own ;  all  are  swept  together 
by  Muslim  writers  as  Zindiqs,  probably  literally, 
"  initiates,"  originally  Manich?eans,  thereafter,  prac- 
tically non-Muslims  concealing  their  unbelief.  For 
when  not  in  open  revolt  they  must  needs  profess 
Islam.  In  167,  we  find  al-Mahdi,  who  was  also,  it 
is  true,  much  more  strict  than  his  father,  al-Mansur, 
appointing  a  grand  inquisitor  to  deal  with  such  here- 
tics. Al-Mansur,  however,  had  contented  himself 
with  crushing  actual  rebellion ;  and  Christian,  Jew, 
Zoroastrian,  and  heathen  of  Harran  were  tolerated 
so  long  as  they  brought  to  him  the  fruits  of  Greek 
science  and  j^hilosophy. 

That  they  did  willingly,  and  so,  through  three  in- 
termediaries, science  came  to  the  Arabs.  There  was 
a  heathen  Syrian  source  with  its  centre  at  Harran,  of 
which  we  know  comparatively  little.  There  was  a 
Christian  Syrian  source  working  from  the  multitudi- 
nous monasteries  scattered  over  the  country.  There 
was  a  Persian  source  by  which  natural  science,  and 
medicine  especially,  were  passed  on.  Already  in  the 
fifth  century  a.d.  an  academy  of  medicine  and  phi- 
losophy had  been  founded  at  Gondeshapur  in  Khuzi- 
stan.  One  of  the  directors  of  this  institution  was 
summoned,  in  148,  to  prescribe  for  al-Mansur,  and 
from  that  time  on  it  furnished  court  physicians  to 
the  Abbasids.  On  these  three  paths,  then,  Aristotle 
and  Plato,  Euclid  and  Ptolemy,  Galen  and  Hippocra- 
tes reached  the  Muslim  peoples. 


GOLDEN    AGE   OF   MUSLIM   SCIENCE  135 

The  first  liiindred  years  of  the  Abbasid  Khalifate 
was  the  golden  age  of  Muslim  science,  the  period  of 
growth  and  development  for  the  People  of  Muham- 
mad fairly  as  a  whole.  Intellectual  life  did  not  cease 
with  the  close  of  that  period,  but  the  Khalifate  ceased 
to  aid  in  carrying  the  torch.  Thereafter,  learning  was 
protected  and  fostered  by  individual  rulers  here  and 
there,  and  individual  investigators  and  scholars  still 
went  on  their  own  quiet  paths.  But  free  intellectual 
life  among  the  people  was  checked,  and  such  learn- 
ing as  still  generally  flourished  fell  more  and  more 
between  fixed  bounds.  Scholasticism,  with  its  formal 
methods  and  systems,  its  subtle  deductions  and  end- 
less ramifications  of  proof  and  counter-proof,  drew 
aAvay  attention  from  the  facts  of  nature.  The  ori- 
ental brain  studied  itself  and  its  own  workings  to  the 
point  of  dizziness,  and  then  turned  and  clung  fast  to 
the  certainties  of  revelation.  Under  this  spell  heresy 
and  orthodoxy  proved  alike  sterile. 

We  return,  now,  to  the  beginnings  of  the  Mu'tazi- 
lites.  These  served  themselves  heirs  upon  the  Qad- 
arites  and  denied  that  God  predestined  the  actions  \ 
of  men.  Death  and  life,  sickness,  health,  and  exter- 
nal vicissitudes  came,  they  admitted,  by  God's  qcfdaVy 
but  it  was  unthinkable  that  man  should  be  punished 
for  actions  not  in  his  control.  The  freedom  of  the 
will  is  an  a  priori  certainty,  and  man  possesses  qadar 
over  his  own  actions.  This  was  the  position  of 
Wasil  ibn  Ata,  of  whom  we  have  already  heard.  But 
to  it  he  added  a  second  doctrine,  the  origin  of  which 
is  obscure,  although  suggestive  of  discussions  with 
Greek  theologians.      The  Qur'an  describes  God  as 


136  THEOLOGY 

willing,  knowing,  decreeing,  etc. — strictly  as  the  Will- 
ing One,  the  Knowing  One,  the  Decreeing  One,  etc. — 
and  the  orthodox  hold  that  such  expressions  could 
only  mean  that  God  possesses  as  Qualities  (si/at) 
Will,  Knowledge,  Power,  Life,  etc.  To  this  AVasil 
raised  objections.  God  was  One,  and  such  Qualities 
would  be  separate  Beings.  Thus,  his  party  and  the 
Mu'tazilites  always  called  themselves  the  People  of 
Unity  and  Justice  {Ahl-at-tatvhid  tuaVadl) ;  the  Unity 
being  of  the  divine  nature,  the  Justice  consisting  in 
that  they  opposed  God's  qadm-  over  men  and  held 
that  He  must  do  for  the  creature  that  which  was  best 
for  it.  Orthodox  Islam  held  and  holds  that  there 
can  be  no  necessity  upon  God,  even  to  do  justice ; 
He  is  absolutely  free,  and  what  He  does  man  must 
accept.  It  flatly  opposes  the  position  held  by  the 
Mu'tazilites  in  general,  that  good  and  evil  can  be 
perceived  and  distinguished  by  the  intellect  {aql). 
Good  and  evil  have  their  nature  by  God's  will,  and 
man  can  learn  to  know  them  only  by  God's  teachings 
and  commands.  Thus,  except  through  revelation, 
there  can  be  neither  theology  nor  ethics. 

The  next  great  advance  was  made  by  Abu  Hudhayl 
Muhammad  al-AUaf  (d.  circa  226),  a  disciple  of  the 
second  generation  from  Wasil.  At  his  hands  the 
doctrine  of  God's  qualities  assumed  a  more  definite 
iform.  Wasil  had  reduced  God  to  a  vague  unity,  a 
kind  of  eternal  oneness.  Abu  Hudhayl  taught  that 
the  qualities  were  not  in  His  essence,  and  thus  sepa- 
t  rable  from  it,  thinkable  apart  from  it,  but  that  they 
loere  His  essence.  Thus,  God  was  omnipotent  by 
His  omnipotence,  but  it  loas  His  essence  and  not  in 


\  o  ABU    HUDHAYL  137 

His  essence.  He  was  omniscient  by  His  omnis- 
cience and  it  ivas  His  essence.  Further,  he  held  that 
these  qualities  must  be  either  negations  or  relations. 
Nothing  positive  can  be  asserted  of  them,  for  that 
would  mean  that  there  was  in  God  the  complexity  of 
subject  and  predicate,  being  and  quality ;  and  God  is 
absolute  Unity.  This  view  the  Muslim  theologians 
regard  as  a  close  approximation  to  the  Christian 
Trinity ;  for  them,  the  persons  of  the  Trinity  have 
always  been  personified  qualities,  and  such  seems 
really  to  have  been  the  view  of  John  of  Damascus. 
Further,  God's  Will,  according  to  Abu  Hudhayl,  as 
expressed  in  His  Creative  Word,  did  not  necessarily 
exist  in  a  subject  {Ji  mahall,  in  suhiecto).  When  God 
said,  "  Be  !  "  creatively,  there  was  no  subject.  Again, 
he  endeavored — and  in  this  he  was  followed  by  most 
of  the  Mu'tazilites — to  cut  down  the  number  of  God's 
attributes.  His  will,  he  said,  was  a  form  of  His 
knowledge;  He  knew  that  there  was  good  in  an 
action,  and  that  knowledge  was  His  will. 

His  position  on  the  qadar  question  was  peculiar. 
With  regard  to  this  world,  he  was  a  Qadarite ;  but 
in  the  next  world,  both  in  heaven  and  in  hell,  he 
thought  that  all  changes  were  by  divine  necessity. 
Otherwise,  that  is,  if  men  were  free,  there  would  be 
obligation  to  observe  a  law  (takUf) ;  but  there  is  no 
such  obligation  in  the  other  world.  Thus,  whatever 
happened  there  happened  by  God's  decree.  Further, 
he  taught  that,  eventually,  nothing  would  happen 
there ;  that  there  would  be  no  changes,  but  only  an 
endless  stillness  in  which  those  in  heaven  had  all  its 
joys  and  those  in  hell  all  its  pains.     This  is  a  close 


138  THEOLOGY 

approximation  to  the  view  of  Jahm  ibn  Saf  wan,  who 
held  that  after  the  judgment  both  heaven  and  hell 
would  pass  away  and  God  remain  alone  as  He  was 
in  the  beginning.  To  these  doctrines  Abu  Hudhayl 
seems  to  have  been  led  by  two  considerations,  both 
significant  for  the  drift  of  the  Mu'tazilites.  First, 
there  was  about  their  reasonings  a  grimness  of  logic 
touched  with  utilitarianism.  Thus,  from  their  posi- 
tion that  man  could  come  by  the  light  of  his  reason 
to  the  knowledge  of  God  and  of  virtue,  they  drew  the 
conclusion  that  it  was  man's  duty  so  to  attain,  and 
that  God  would  damn  eternally  every  man  who  did 
not.  Their  utilitarianism,  again,  comes  out  strik- 
ingly in  their  view  of  heaven  and  hell.  These,  at 
present,  were  serving  no  useful  purpose  because  they 
had  no  inhabitants ;  therefore,  at  present,  they  did 
not  exist.  But  this  made  difficulties  for  Abu  Hud- 
hayl. What  has  a  beginning.must  have  an  end.  So 
he  explained  the  end  as  the  ceasing  of  all  changes. 
Second,  he  shows  clear  evidence  of  influence  from 
Greek  philosophy.  The  Qur'an  teaches  that  the  world 
has  been  created  in  time ;  Aristotle,  that  it  is  from 
eternity  and  to  eternity.  The  creation,  Abu  Hudhayl 
applied  to  changes ;  before  that,  the  world  luas,  but 
in  eternal  rest.  Hereafter,  all  changes  will  cease ; 
rest  will  again  enter  and  endure  to  all  eternity.  We 
shall  see  how  largely  this  doctrine  was  advanced  and 
developed  by  his  successors. 

But  there  were  further  complications  in  the  doc- 
trine of  man's  actions  and  into  some  of  these  we  must 
enter,  on  account  of  their  later  importance.  Not 
rvory thing  that  comes  from  the  action  of  a  man  is  by 


(  U      r 


.V"  ABU   IIUDHAYL  139 

his  action.  God  has  a  creative  part  in  it,  apparently 
as  regards  the  effects.  Especially,  knowledge  in  the 
mind  of  a  pupil  does  not  come  from  the  teacher,  but 
from  God.  The  idea  seems  to  be  that  the  teacher 
may  teach,  but  that  the  being  taught  in  the  pupil  is 
a  divine  working.  Similarly,  he  distinguished  motions 
in  the  mind,  which  he  held  were  not  altogether  due 
to  the  man,  and  external  motions  which  were.  There 
is  given,  too,  to  a  man  at  the  time  of  his  performing 
an  action  an  ability  to  perform  the  action,  which  is  a 
special  accident  in  him  apart  from  any  mere  sound- 
ness of  health  or  limb. 

In  these  ways,  Abu  Hudhayl  recognized  God's 
working  through  man.  Another  of  his  positions  had 
a  similar  basis  and  was  a  curious  combination  of  his- 
torical criticism  and  mysticism,  a  combination  which 
we  shall  find  later  in  al-Ghazzali,  a  much  greater  man. 
The  evidence  of  tradition  for  things  dealing  with  the 
Unseen  World  {al-ghayh)  he  rejected.  Twenty  wit- 
nesses might  hand  on  the  tradition  in  question,  but 
it  was  not  to  be  received  unless  among  them  there 
was  one,  at  least,  of  the  People  of  Paradise.  At  all 
times,  he  taught,  there  were  in  the  world  these  Friends 
of  God  {aicliya  Allah,  sing,  ivali),  who  were  protected 
against  all  greater  sins  and  could  not  lie.  It  is  the 
word  of  these  that  is  the  basis  for  belief,  and  the  tra- 
dition is  merely  a  statement  of  what  they  have  said. 
This  shows  clearly  how  far  the  doctrine  of  the  ecstatic 
life  and  of  knowledge  gained  through  direct  inter- 
course between  the  believer  and  God  had  already  ad- 
vanced. 

But  Abu  Hudhayl  was  only  one  in  a  group  of  dar- 


140  THEOLOGY 

ing   and  absolutely  free-minded  speculators.     They 
were  applying  to  the  ideas  of  the  Qur'an  the  keen 
solvent  of  Greek  dialectic,  and  the  results  which  they 
obtained  were  of  the  most  fantastically  original  char- 
acter.    Thrown  into  the  wide  sea  and  utter  freedom 
of  Greek  thought,  their  ideas  had  expanded  to  the 
bursting  point  and,  more  than  even  a  German  meta- 
physician, they  had  lost  touch  of  the  ground  of  or- 
dinary  life,   with    its   reasonable  probabilities,  and 
were  swinging  loose  on  a  wild  hunt  after  ultimate 
truth,  wielding  as  their  weapons  definitions  and  syl- 
logisms.    The   lyric   fervors  of   Muhammad   in  the 
Qur'an  gave  scope  enough  of  strange  ideas  from  which 
to  start,  or  which  had  to  be  explained  away.     Their 
belief  in  the  powers  of  the  science  of  logic  was  un- 
failing, and,  armed  with  Aristotle's  "Analytics,"  they 
felt  sure  that  certainty  was  within  their  reach.     It 
was  at  the  court  and  under  the  protection  of  al- 
Ma'mun  that  they  especially  flourished,  and  some 
account  of  the  leading  spirits    among  them  will  be 
necessary  before  we  describe  how  they  reached  their 
utmost  pride  of  power  and  how  they  fell. 

An-Nazzam  (d.  231)  has  the  credit  among  later 
historians  of  having  made  use,  to  a  high  degree,  of 
the  doctrines  of  the  Greek  philosophers.  He  was 
one  of  the  Satans  of  the  Qadarites,  say  they ;  he  read 
the  books  of  the  philosophers  and  mingled  their 
teachings  with  the  doctrines  of  the  Mu'tazilites.  He 
/taught,  in  the  most  absolute  way,  that  God  could  do 
nothing  to  a  creature,  either  in  this  world  or  in  the 
next,  that  was  not  for  the  creature's  good  and  in  ac- 
cordance with  strict  justice.     It  was  not  only  that 


AN-NAZZAM  141 

God  loould  not  do  it ;  He  had  not  the  power  to  do 
anything  evil.  Evidently  the  personality  of  God  was 
fast  vanishing  behind  an  absolute  law  of  right.  To 
this,  orthodox  Islam  opposed  the  doctrine  that  God 
could  do  anything  ;  He  could  forgive  whom  He  willed, 
and  punish  whom  He  willed.  Further,  he  taught 
that  God's  willing  a  thing  meant  only  that  He  did  it 
in  accordance  with  His  knowledge  ;  and  when  He 
willed  the  action  of  a  creature  that  meant  only  that 
He  commanded  it.  This  is  evidently  to  evade  phrases 
in  the  Qur'an.  Man,  again,  he  taught,  was  spirit  {ruh), 
and  the  body  (hadan)  was  only  an  instrument.  But 
this  spirit  was  a  fine  substance  which  flowed  in  the 
body  like  the  essential  oil  in  a  rose,  or  butter  in  milk. 
In  a  universe  determined  by  strict  law,  man  alone 
was  undetermined.  He  could  throw  a  stone  into  the 
air,  and  by  his  action  the  stone  went  up ;  but  when 
the  force  of  his  throw  was  exhausted  it  came  again 
under  law  and  fell.  If  he  had  only  asked  himself 
how  it  came  to  fall,  strange  things  might  have  hap- 
pened. But  he,  and  all  his  fellows,  were  only  play- 
ing with  words  like  counters.  Further,  he  taught 
that  God  had  created  all  created  things  at  once,  but 
that  He  kept  them  in  concealment  until  it  was  time 
for  them  to  enter  on  the  stage  of  visible  being  and  do 
their  part.  All  things  that  ever  will  exist  are  thus 
existing  now,  but,  in  a  sense,  in  retentis.  This  seems 
to  be  another  attempt  to  solve  the  problem  of  crea- 
tion in  time,  and  it  had  important  consequences. 
Further,  the  Qur'an  was  no  miracle  (mu'jiz)  to  him. 
The  only  miraculous  elements  in  it  are  the  narratives 
about  the  Unseen  World,  and  past  things  and  things 


142  THEOLOGY 

to  come,  and  the  fact  that  God  deprived  the  Arabs  of 
the  power  of  writing  anything  like  it.  But  for  that,  they 
could  easily  have  surpassed  it  as  literature.  As  a 
high  Imamite  he  rejected  utterly  agreement  and 
analogy.  Only  the  divinely  appointed  Imam  had 
the  right  to  supplement  the  teaching  of  Muhammad. 
We  pass  over  some  of  his  metaphysical  views,  odd 
as  they  are.  The  Muslim  writers  on  theological  his- 
tory have  classified  him  rightly  as  more  of  a  physicist 
than  a  metaphysician.  He  had  a  concrete  mind  and 
that  fondness  for  playing  with  metaphysical  para- 
doxes which  often  goes  with  it. 

Another  of  the  group  was  Bishr  ibn  al-Mu'tamir. 
His  principal  contribution  was  the  doctrine  of  tawlid 
and  taivalhid,  begetting  and  deriving.  It  is  the  trans- 
mission of  a  single  action  through  a  series  of  objects  ; 
the  agent  meant  to  affect  the  first  object  only  ;  the 
effect  on  the  others  followed.  Thus,  he  moves  his 
hand,  and  the  ring  on  his  finger  is  moved.  What  re- 
lation of  responsibility,  then,  does  he  bear  to  these 
derived  effects?  Generally,  how  are  we  to  view  a 
complex  of  causes  acting  together  and  across  one 
another?  The  answer  of  later  orthodox  Islam  is 
worth  giving  at  this  point.  God  creates  in  the  man 
the  will  to  move  his  hand ;  He  creates  the  movement 
of  the  hand  and  also  the  movement  of  the  ring.  All 
is  by  God's  direct  creation  at  the  time.  Further, 
could  God  punish  an  infant  or  one  who  had  no 
knowledge  of  the  faith  ?  Bishr's  reply  on  the  first 
point  was  simply  a  bit  of  logical  jugglery  to  avoid 
saying  frankly  that  there  was  anything  tliat  God 
could  not  do.     His  answer  on  the  second  was  that 


BiSHR  ;  MA 'mar  143 

God  coiilcl  have  made  a  different  and  much  better 
world  than  this,  a  world  in  which  all  men  might  have 
been  saved.  But  He  Avas  not  bound  to  make  a  bet- 
ter world — in  this  Bishr  separates  from  the  other 
Mu'tazilites — He  was  only  bound  to  give  man  free- 
will and,  then,  either  revelation  to  guide  him  to  sal- 
vation or  reason  to  show  him  natural  law. 

With  Ma 'mar  ibn  Abbad,  the  philosophies  wax 
faster  and  more  furious.  He  succeeded  in  reducing 
the  conception  of  God  to  a  bare,  indefinable  some- 
thing. We  could  not  say  that  God  had  knowledge. 
For  it  must  be  of  something  in  Himself  or  outside  of 
Himself.  If  the  first,  then  there  was  a  union  of 
knower  and  known,  and  that  is  impossible;  or  a  dual- 
ity in  the  divine  nature,  and  that  was  equally  impos- 
sible. Here  Ma'mar  was  evidently  on  the  road  to 
Hegel.  If  the  second,  then  His  knowledge  depended 
on  the  existence  of  something  other  than  Himself,  and 
that  did  away  Avith  His  absoluteness.  Similarly,  he 
dealt  with  God's  Will.  Nor  could  He  be  described 
as  qadim,  prior  to  all  things,  for  that  word,  in  Arabic, 
suggested  sequence  and  time.  By  all  this,  he  evi- 
dently meant  that  our  conce23tions  cannot  be  applied 
to  God ;  that  God  is  unthinkable  by  us.  On  creation, 
he  developed  the  ideas  of  an-Nazzam.  Substances 
(jisms)  only  were  created  by  God,  and  by  "  sub- 
stances "  he  seems  to  mean  matter  as  a  whole ;  all 
changes  in  them,  or  it,  come  either  of  necessity  from 
its  nature,  as  when  fire  burns,  the  sun  warms ;  or  of 
free-will,  as  always  in  the  animal  world.  God  has  no 
part  in  these  things.  He  has  given  the  material  and 
has  nothing  to   do  with  the  coming   and  going   of 


144  THEOLOGY 

separate  bodies ;  such  are  simple  changes,  forms  of 
existence,  and  proceed  from  the  matter  itself.  Man 
is  an  incorporeal  substance.  The  soul  is  the  man 
and  his  body  is  but  a  cover.  This  true  man  can  only 
know  and  will ;  the  body  perceives  and  does. 

The  last  of  this  group  whose  views  we  need  con- 
sider, is  Thumama  ibn  Ashras.     He  was  of  very  du- 
bious morals ;  was  imprisoned  as  a  heretic  by  Harun 
ar-Eashid,  but  highly  favored  by  al-Ma'mun,  in  whose 
Khalifate  he  died,  a.h.  213.     He  held  that  actions 
produced  through  taivallud  had  no  agent,  either  God 
or  man.     That  knowledge  of  good  and   evil  could  be 
produced  by  taivallud  through   speculation,  and  is, 
therefore,  an  action  without  an  agent,  and  required 
even  before  revelation.     That  Jews,  Christians,  Magi- 
ans  will  be  turned  into  dust   in  the  next  world  and 
will  not  enter  either  Paradise  or  Hell ;  the  same  will 
be  the  fate  of  cattle  and  children.     That  any  one  of 
the  unbelievers  who  does  not  know  his  Creator  is  ex- 
cusable.    That  all  knowledge  is  a  priori.     That  the 
only  action  which  men  possess  is  will;  everything 
besides   that   is   a   production   without  a  producer. 
That  the  world  is  the  act  of  God  by  His  nature,  i.e., 
it  is  an  act  which  His  nature  compels  Him  to  pro- 
duce ;  is,  therefore,  from  eternity  and  to  eternity  with 
Him.     It  may  be  doubted  how  far  Thumama  was  a 
professional  theologian  and  how  far  he  was  a  free- 
thinking,  easy-living  man  of  letters. 

In  all  this,  the  influence  of  Greek  theology  and  of 
Aristotle  can  be  clearly  traced.  With  Aristotle  had 
come  to  them  the  idea  of  the  world  as  law,  an  eternal 
construction  subsisting  and  developing  on  fixed  prin- 


THE   VISION   OF   GOD  145 

ciples.  This  conception  of  law  shows  itself  in  their 
thought  frankly  at  strife  with  Muhammad's  concep- 
tion of  God  as  will,  as  the  sovereign  over  all.  Hence, 
the  crudities  and  devices  by  which  they  strove  to 
make  good  their  footing  on  strange  ground  and  keep 
a  right  to  the  name  of  Muslim,  while  changing  the 
essence  of  their  faith.  The  anthropomorphic  God  of 
Muhammad,  who  has  face  and  hands,  is  seen  in  Para- 
dise by  the  believer  and  settles  Himself  firmly  upon 
His  throne,  becomes  a  spirit,  and  a  spirit,  too,  of  the 
vaguest  kind. 

It  remains  now  only  to  touch  upon  one  or  two 
points  common  to  all  the  Mu'tazilites.  First,  the 
Beatific  Vision  of  God  in  Paradise.  It  was  a  fixed 
agreement  of  the  early  Muslim  Church,  based  on 
texts  of  the  Qur'an  and  on  tradition,  that  some  be- 
lievers, at  least,  would  see  and  gaze  upon  God  in  the 
other  world ;  this  was  the  highest  delight  held  out  to 
them.  But  the  Mu'tazilites  perceived  that  vision  in- 
volved a  directing  of  the  eyes  on  the  part  of  the  seer 
and  position  on  the  part  of  the  seen.  God  must, 
therefore,  be  in  a  place  and  thus  limited.  So  they 
were  compelled  to  reject  the  agreement  and  the  tra- 
ditions in  question  and  to  explain  away  the  passages 
in  the  Qur'an.  Similarly,  in  Qur'an  vii.  52,  we  read 
that  God  settled  Himself  firmly  upon  His  throne. 
This,  with  other  anthropomorphisms  of  hands  and 
feet  and  eyes,  the  Mu'tazilites  had  to  explain  away 
in  a  more  or  less  cumbrous  fashion. 

With  one  other  detail  of  this  class  we  must  deal 
at  greater  length.  It  was  destined  to  be  the  vital 
point  of  the  whole  Mu'tazilite  controversy  and  the  test 


146  THEOLOGY 

by  wliich  theologians  were  tried  and  liad  their  places 
assigned.  It  had  a  weighty  part  also  in  bringing 
about  the  fall  of  the  Mu'tazilites.  There  had  grown 
up  very  early  in  the  Muslim  community  an  un- 
bounded reverence  and  awe  in  the  presence  of  the 
Qur'an.  In  it  God  speaks,  addressing  His  servant, 
the  Prophet ;  the  words,  with  few  exceptions,  are 
direct  words  of  God.  It  is,  therefore,  easily  intelli- 
gible that  it  came  to  be  called  the  word  of  God  (kalam 
Allah).  But  Muslim  piety  went  further  and  held  that 
it  was  uncreated  and  had  existed  from  all  eternity 
with  God.  Whatever  proofs  of  this  doctrine  may 
have  been  brought  forward  later  from  the  Qur'an  it- 
self, we  can  have  no  difficulty  in  recognizing  that  it 
is  plainly  derived  from  the  Christian  Logos  and  that 
the  Greek  Church,  perhaps  through  John  of  Damas- 
cus, has  again  played  a  formative  part.  So,  in  cor- 
respondence with  the  heavenly  and  uncreated  Logos 
in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  there  stands  this  uncre- 
ated and  eternal  Word  of  God ;  to  the  earthly  mani- 
festation in  Jesus  corresponds  the  Qur'an,  the  Word 
of  God  which  we  read  and  recite.  The  one  is  not  the 
same  as  the  other,  but  the  idea  to  be  gained  from  the 
expressions  of  the  one  is  equivalent  to  the  idea  which 
we  would  gain  from  the  other,  if  the  veil  of  the  flesh 
were  removed  from  us  and  the  spiritual  world  re- 
vealed. 

That  this  view  grew  up  very  early  among  the 
Muslims  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  it  is  opposed 
by  Jahm  ibn  Safwan,  who  was  killed  toward  the 
end  of  the  Umayyad  period.  It  seems  to  have 
originated  by   a  kind  of  transfusion  of  ideas  from 


THE  WORD    OF  GUD  147 

Cliristianity  and  not  as  a  result  of  controversy  or 
dialectic  about  the  teachings  of  the  Qur'an.  We  find 
the  orthodox  party  yehemently  opposing  discussion 
on  the  subject,  as  indeed  they  did  on  all  theological 
subjects.  "  Our  fathers  have  told  us  ;  it  is  the  faith 
received  from  the  Companions ;  "  was  their  argument 
from  the  earliest  time  we  can  trace.  Malik  ibn  Anas 
used  to  cut  off  all  discussions  with  " Bila  kayfa'' 
(Believe  without  asking  how) ;  and  he  held  strongly 
that  the  Qur'an  was  uncreated.  The  same  word  halam 
which  we  have  found  applied  to  the  Word  of  God — ■ 
both  the  eternal,  uncreated  Logos  and  its  manifesta- 
tion in  the  Qur'an — was  used  by  them  most  confusing- 
ly for  "disputation;"  "he  disputed"  was  takallam 
and  "  one  who  disputed  "  Avas  mutahalUm.  All  that 
was  anathema  to  the  pious,  and  it  is  amusing  to  see 
the  origin  of  what  became  later  the  technical  terms 
for  scholastic  theology  and  its  students  in  their 
shuddering  repulsion  to  all  "  talking  about "  the  sacred 
mysteries. 

This  opposition  appeared  in  two  forms.  First, 
they  refused  to  go  an  inch  beyond  the  statements  in 
the  Qur'an  and  tradition  and  to  draw  consequences, 
however  near  the  surface  these  consequences  might 
seem  to  lie.  A  story  is  told  of  al-Bukhari,  (d.  257), 
late  as  he  is,  which  shows  how  far  this  went  and  how 
long  it  lasted.  An  inquisition  was  got  up  against 
him  out  of  envy  by  one  of  his  fellow-teachers.  The 
point  of  attack  was  the  orthodoxy  of  his  position  on 
the  lafz  (utterance)  of  the  Qur'an  ;  was  it  created  or 
uncreated  ?  He  said  readily  that  the  Qur'an  was  un- 
created and  was  obstinately  silent  as  to  the  utterance 


148  THEOLOGY 

of  it  by  men.  At  last,  persistent  questioning  drove 
him  to  an  outburst.  "  The  Qur'an  is  the  Word  of 
God  and  is  uncreated.  The  speech  of  man  is  created 
and  inquisition  {imtihan)  is  an  innovation  (Md'a).'' 
But  beyond  that  he  would  not  go,  even  to  draw  the 
conclusion  of  the  syllogism  which  he  had  indicated. 
Some,  as  we  may  gather  from  this  story,  had  felt 
themselves  driven  to  hold  that  not  only  the  Qur'an 
in  itself  but  also  the  utterance  of  it  by  the  lips  of 
men  and  the  writing  of  it  by  men's  hands — all  be- 
tween the  boards,  as  they  said — was  uncreated. 
Others  were  coming  to  deny  absolutely  the  existence 
of  the  eternal  Logos  and  that  this  revealed  Qur'an 
was  uncreated  in  any  sense.  But  others,  as  al-Bu- 
khari,  while  holding  tenaciously  that  the  Qur'an  was 
uncreated,  refused  to  make  any  statement  as  to  its 
utterance  by  men.  There  was  nothing  said  about 
that  in  Qur'an  or  tradition. 

The  second  form  of  opposition  was  to  any  uphold- 
ing of  their  belief  by  arguments,  except  of  the  sim- 
plest and  most  apparent.  That  was  an  invasion  by 
reason  (aql)  of  the  realm  of  traditional  faith  {naql). 
When  the  pious  were  eventually  driven  to  dialectic 
weapons,  their  arguments  show  that  these  were 
snatched  up  to  defend  already  occupied  positions. 
They  ring  artificial  and  forced.  Thus,  in  the  Qur'an 
itself,  the  Qur'an  is  called  "  knowledge  from  God." 
It  is,  then,  inseparable  from  God's  quality  of  knowl- 
edge. But  that  is  eternal  and  uncreated  ;  therefore, 
so  too,  the  Qur'an.  Again,  God  created  everything 
by  the  word,  "  Be."  But  this  word  cannot  have  been 
created,  otherwise  a  created  word  would  be  a  creator. 


THE   WORD   OF   GOD  149 

Therefore,  God's  word  is  uncreated.  Again,  there 
stands  in  the  Qur'an  (vii,  52),  "Are  not  the  creation 
and  the  command  His  ?  "  The  command  here  is  evi- 
dently different  from  the  creation,  i.e.,  not  created. 
Further,  God's  command  creates ;  therefore  it  cannot 
be  created.  But  it  is  God's  word  in  command.  It 
will  be  noticed  here  how  completely  God's  word  is 
hypostatized.  This  appears  still  more  strongly  in 
the  following  argument.  God  said  to  Moses,  (Qur. 
vii,  141),  "I  have  chosen  thee  over  mankind  with 
my  apostolate  and  my  word."  God,  therefore,  has  a 
word.  But,  again  (Qur.  iv,  162),  He  addresses 
Moses  with  this  word  {kallama-Uahu  Musa  tahlima^ 
evidently  regarded  as  meaning  that  God's  word  ad- 
dressed Moses)  and  said,  "  Lo,  I  am  thy  Lord."  This 
argument  is  supposed  to  put  the  opponent  in  a  di- 
lemma. Either  he  rejects  the  fact  of  Moses  being  so 
addressed,  which  is  rejecting  what  God  has  said,  and 
is,  therefore,  unbelief ;  or  he  holds  that  the  halam 
which  so  addresses  Moses  is  a  created  thing.  Then, 
a  created  thing  asserts  that  it  is  Moses'  Lord.  There- 
fore, God's  Jcalam  with  which  He  addresses  the  proph- 
ets, or  which  addresses  the  prophets,  is  eternal,  un- 
created. 

But  if  this  doctrine  grew  up  early  in  Islam,  op- 
position to  it  was  not  slow  in  appearing,  and  that  on 
different  sides.  Literary  vanity,  national  pride,  and 
philosophical  scruples  all  made  themselves  felt.  Even 
in  Muhammad's  lifetime,  according  to  the  legend  of 
the  poet  Labid  and  the  verses  which  he  put  up  in 
challenge  on  the  Ka'ba,  the  Qur'an  had  taken  rank  as 
inimitable  poetry.     At  all  points  it  was  the  Word  of 


150  THEOLOGY 

God  and  perfect  in  every  detail.  But,  among  the 
Arabs,  a  jealous  and  vain  people,  if  there  was  one 
thing  on  which  each  was  more  jealous  and  vain  than 
another,  it  was  skill  in  working  with  words.  The 
superiority  of  Muhammad  as  a  Prophet  of  God  they 
might  endure,  though  often  with  a  bad  grace  ;  but 
Muhammad  as  a  rival  and  unapproachable  literary 
artist  they  could  not  away  with.  So  we  find  satire  of 
the  weaknesses  of  the  Qur'an  appearing  here  and 
there,  and  it  came  to  be  a  sign  of  emancipation  and 
freedom  from  prejudice  to  examine  it  in  detail  and 
balance  it  against  other  products  of  the  Arab  genius. 
The  rival  productions  of  Musaylima,  the  False  Proph- 
et, long  enjoyed  a  semi-contraband  existence,  and 
Abu  Ubayda  (d.  208)  found  it  necessary  to  write  a 
treatise  in  defence  of  the  metaphors  of  the  Qur'an. 
Among  the  Persians  this  was  still  more  the  case.  To 
them,  Muhammad  might  be  a  prophet,  but  he  was  also 
an  Arab ;  and  while  they  accepted  his  mission,  ac- 
cepting his  books  in  a  literary  way  was  too  much  for 
them.  As  a  prophet,  he  was  a  man  ;  as  a  literary 
artist,  he  was  an  Arab.  So  Jahm  ibn  Safwan  may 
have  felt;  so,  certainly,  others  felt  later.  The  poet 
Bashshar  ibn  Burd  (killed  for  satire,  in  167),  a  com- 
panion of  Wasil  ibn  Ata  and  a  Persian  of  very  dubi- 
ous orthodoxy,  used  to  amuse  himself  by  comparing 
poems  by  himself  and  others  with  passages  in  the 
Qur'an,  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  latter.  And  Ibn 
al-Muqaffa  (killed  about  140),  the  translator  of  "  Kahla 
and  Dimna"  and  many  other  books  into  Arabic,  and 
a  Persian  nationalist,  is  said  to  have  planned  an  im- 
itation of  the  Qur'an. 


mu'tazilite  attitude  151 

Added  to  all  this  came  the  influence  of  the  Mu'tazi- 
lite  theologians.  They  had  a  double  ground  for  their 
opposition.  The  doctrine  of  an  absolutely  divine 
and  perfect  book  limited  them  too  much  in  their 
intellectual  freedom.  They  were  willing  to  respect 
and  use  the  Qur'an,  but  not  to  accept  its  ijmssima 
verba.  Regarded  as  the  production  of  Muhammad 
under  divine  influence,  it  could  have  a  human  and  a 
divine  side,  and  things  which  needed  to  be  dropped 
or  changed  in  it  could  be  ascribed  to  the  human 
side.  But  that  was  not  possible  with  a  miraculous 
book  come  down  from  heaven.  In  a  word,  they  were 
meeting  the  difliculty  which  has  been  met  by  Chris- 
tianity in  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  least  they  could  do  was  to  deny  that  the  Qur'an 
was  uncreated. 

But  they  had  a  still  more  vital,  if  not  more  im- 
portant, philosophical  base  of  objection.  We  have 
seen  already  how  they  viewed  the  doctrine  of  God's 
qualities  (si/at)  and  tried  to  limit  them  in  every  way. 
These  qualities  ran  danger,  they  held,  of  being  hy- 
postatized  into  separate  persons  like  those  in  the 
Christian  Trinity,  and  we  have  just  seen  how  near 
that  danger  really  lay  in  the  case  of  God's  kalam.  In 
orthodox  Islam  it  has  become  a  plain  Logos. 

The  position  in  this  of  an-Nazzam  has  been  given 
above.  It  is  interesting  as  showing  that  the  Qur'an, 
even  then,  was  given  as  a  probative  miracle  {mu^jiz) 
because  it  deprived  all  men  of  power  {i^jaz)  to  imitate 
it.  That  is,  its  aesthetic  perfection  was  raised  to  the 
miraculous  degree  and  then  regarded  as  a  proof  of 
its  divine  origin.     But  al-Muzdar,  a  pupil  of  Bishr 


152  THEOLOGY 

ibn  al  Mu*tamir  and  an  ascetic  of  high  rank,  called 
the  Monk  of  the  Mu'tazilites,  went  still  further  than 
an-Nazzam.  He  flatly  damned  as  unbelievers  all  who 
held  the  eternity  of  the  Qur'an ;  they  had  taken  unto 
themselves  two  Gods.  Further,  he  asserted  that  men 
were  quite  capable  of  producing  a  work  even  finer 
than  the  Qur'an  in  point  of  style.  But  the  force  of 
this  opinion  is  somewhat  diminished  by  the  liberality 
with  which  he  denounced  his  opponents  in  general  as 
unbelievers.  Stories  are  told  of  him  very  much  like 
those  in  circulation  with  us  about  those  who  hold 
that  few  will  be  saved,  and  it  is  worth  noticing  that 
upon  this  point  of  salvability  the  Mu'tazilites  were 
even  narrower  than  the  orthodox. 


CHAPTEE  II 

Al-Ma'mun  and  the  triumph  of  the  Mu'tazilites ;  the  Mihna  and 
Ahmad  ibn  Hanbal ;  al-Farabi ;  the  Fatimids  and  the  Ikhwan 
as-Safa;  the  early  mystics,  ascetic  and  pantheistic;  al-Hallaj. 

Such  for  long  was  the  situation  between  the  Mu'- 
tazilites  and  their  orthodox  opponents.  From  time 
to  time  the  Mu'tazilites  received  more  or  less  protec- 
tion and  state  favor ;  at  other  times,  they  had  to 
seek  safety  in  hiding.  Popular  favor  they  seem 
never  to  have  enjoyed.  As  the  Umayyads  grew 
weak,  they  became  more  stiff  in  their  orthodoxy; 
but  with  the  Abbasids,  and  especially  with  al-Mansur, 
thought  was  again  free.  As  has  been  shown  above, 
encouragement  of  science  and  research  was  part  of 
the  plan  of  that  great  man,  and  he  easily  saw  that 
the  intellectual  hope  of  the  future  was  with  these 
theological  and  philosophical  questioners.  So  their 
work  went  slowly  on,  with  a  break  under  Harun  ar- 
Rashid,  a  magnificent  but  highly  orthodox  monarch, 
who  imderstood  no  trifling  with  things  of  the  faith. 
It  is  an  interesting  but  useless  question  whether 
Islam  could  ever  have  been  broadened  and  devel- 
oped to  the  point  of  enduring  in  its  midst  free  spec- 
ulation and  research.  As  the  case  stands  in  history, 
it  has  known  periods  of  intellectual  life,  but  only 
under  the  protection  of  isolated  princes  here  and 
there.     It  has  had  Augustan  ages ;  it  has  never  had 

153 


154  THEOLOGY 

great  popular  yearnings  after  wider  knowledge.  Its 
intellectual  leaders  have  lived  and  studied  and  lect- 
ured at  courts ;  tliey  have  not  gone  down  and  taught 
the  masses  of  the  people.  To  that  the  democracy  of 
Islam  has  never  come.  Hampered  by  scholastic 
snobbishness,  it  has  never  learned  that  the  abiding 
victories  of  science  are  won  in  the  village  school. 

But  most  unfortunately  for  the  Mu'tazilites  and  for 
Islam,  a  Khalifa  arose  who  had  a  relish  for  theological 
discussions  and  a  high  opinion  of  his  own  infallibil- 
ity. This  was  al-Ma'mun.  It  did  not  matter  that 
he  ranged  himself  on  the  progressive  side ;  his  fatal 
error  was  that  he  invoked  the  authority  of  the  state 
in  matters  of  the  intellectual  and  religious  life.  Thus, 
by  enabling  the  conservative  party  to  pose  as  mar- 
tyrs, he  brought  the  prejudices  and  passions  of  the 
populace  still  more  against  the  new  movement.  He 
was  that  most  dangerous  of  all  beings,  a  doctrinaire 
despot.  He  had  ideas  and  tried  to  make  other  peo- 
ple live  up  to  them.  Al-Mansur,  though  a  bloody 
tyrant,  had  been  a  great  statesman  and  had  known 
how  to  bend  people  and  things  quietly  to  his  will. 
He  had  sketched  the  firm  outlines  of  a  policy  for  the 
Abbasids,  but  had  been  cautious  how  he  proclaimed 
his  programme  to  the  world.  The  w^orld  would  come 
to  him  in  time,  and  he  could  afford  to  wait  and  work 
in  the  dark.  He  knew,  above  all,  that  no  people 
would  submit  to  be  school-mastered  into  the  way  in 
which  they  should  go.  Al-Ma'mun,  for  all  his  genius, 
w^as  at  heart  a  school-master.  He  was  an  enlight- 
ened patron  of  an  enlightened  Islam.  Those  who 
preferred  to  dwell  in  the  darkness  of  the  obscurant, 


al-ma'mun  155 

he  first  scolded  and  then  punished.  Discussions  in 
theology  and  comparative  religion  were  his  hobby. 
That  some  such  interchange  of  letters  between  Mus- 
lims and  Christians  as  that  which  crystallized  in  the 
Epistle  of  al-Kindi  took  place  at  his  court  seems 
certain.  Bishr  al-Marisi,  Avho  had  lived  in  hiding  in 
ar-Eashid's  time  on  account  of  his  heretical  views, 
disputed,  in  209,  before  al-Ma'mun  on  the  nature  of 
the  Qur'an.  He  founded  at  Baghdad  an  academy 
with  library,  laboratories,  and  observatory.  All  the 
weight  of  his  influence  was  thrown  on  the  side  of  the 
Mu'tazilites.  It  appeared  as  though  he  were  deter- 
mined to  pull  his  people  up  by  force  from  their  su- 
perstition and  ignorance. 

At  last,  he  took  the  final  and  fatal  step.  In  202 
a  decree  appeared  proclaiming  the  doctrine  of  the 
creation  of  the  Qur'an  as  the  only  truth,  and  as  bind- 
ing upon  all  Muslims.  At  the  same  time,  as  an  evi- 
dent sop  to  the  Persian  nationalists  and  the  Alids, 
Ali  was  proclaimed  the  best  of  creatures  after  Mu- 
hammad. The  Alids,  it  should  be  remembered,  had 
close  points  of  contact  with  the  Mu'tazilites.  Such 
a  theological  decree  as  this  was  a  new  thing  in  Islam  ; 
never  before  had  the  individual  consciousness  been 
threatened  by  a  word  from  the  throne.  The  Mu'tazi- 
lites  through  it  practically  became  a  state  church 
under  erastian  control.  But  the  system  of  Islam 
never  granted  to  the  Imam,  or  leader  of  the  Muslim 
people,  any  position  but  that  of  a  protector  and  rep- 
resentative. Its  theology  could  only  be  formed,  as 
we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  its  law,  by  the  agree- 
ment of  the  whole  community.     The  question  then 


156  THEOLOGY 

naturally  was  what  effect  such  a  new  thing  as  this 
decree  could  have  except  to  exasperate  the  orthodox 
and  the  masses.  Practically,  there  was  no  other 
effect.  Things  went  on  as  before.  All  that  it  meant 
was  that  one  very  prominent  Muslim  had  stated  his 
opinion  and  thrown  in  his  lot  with  heretics. 

For  six  years  this  continued,  and  then  a  method 
was  devised  of  bringing  the  will  of  the  Khalifa  home 
upon  the  people.     In  217  a  distinguished  Mu'tazilite, 
Ahmad  ibn  Abi  Duwad,  was  appointed  chief  qadi, 
and  in  218  the  decree  was  renewed.     But  this  time 
it  was  accompanied  by  what  we  would  call  a  test- 
act,  and  an  inquisition  {mihna)  was  instituted.     The 
letter  of  directions   for  the  conduct  of  this  matter, 
written  by  al-Ma'mun  to  his  lieutenant  at  Baghdad, 
is  decisive  as  to  the  character  of  the  man  and  the 
nature  of  the  movement.     It  is  full  of  railings  against 
the  common  people  who  know  not  the  law  and  are 
accursed.     They  are  too  stupid  to  understand  phi- 
losophy or  argument.     It  is  the  duty  of  the  Khalifa 
to  guide  them  and  especially  to  show  them  the  dis- 
tinction between  God  and  His  book.     He  who  holds 
otherwise  than  the  Khalifa  is  either  too  blind  or  too 
lying  and  deceitful  to  be  trusted  in  any  other  thing. 
Therefore,  the   qadis   must    be   tested   as    to   their 
views.     If  they  hold  that  the  Qur'an  is  uncreated, 
they  have  abandoned  tawliid,  the  doctrine  of  God's 
Unity,  and  can  no  longer  hold  office  in  a  Muslim 
land.     Also,  the  qadis  must  apply  the  same  test  to 
all  the  witnesses  in  cases  before  them.     If  these  do 
not  hold  that  the  Qur'an  is  created,  they  cannot  be 
legal  witnesses.     Other  letters  followed ;  the  Mihna 


AHMAD   IBN   HANBAL  157 

was  extended  through  the  Abbasid  empire  and  ap- 
plied to  other  doctrines,  e.cj,^  that  of  free-will  and  of 
the  vision  of  God.  The  Khalifa  also  commanded 
that  the  death  penalty  for  unbelief  {hufr)  should  be 
inflicted  on  those  who  refused  to  take  the  test.  They 
were  to  be  regarded  as  idolaters  and  polytheists. 
The  death  of  al-Ma'mun  in  the  same  year  relieved 
the  pressure.  It  is  true  that  the  Mihna  was  contin- 
ued by  his  successor,  al-Mu'tasim,  and  by  his  succes- 
sor, al-Wathiq,  but  without  energy;  it  was  more  a 
handy  political  weapon  than  anything  else.  In  234, 
the  second  year  of  al-Mutawakkil,  it  was  abolished 
and  the  Qur'an  decreed  uncreated.  At  the  same  time 
the  Alids  and  all  Persian  nationalism  came  under 
a  ban.  Practically,  the  status  quo  ante  was  restored 
and  Mu'tazilism  was  again  left  a  struggling  heresy. 
The  Arab  party  and  the  pure  faith  of  Muhammad 
had  re-asserted  themselves. 

In  this  long  conflict,  the  most  prominent  figure  was 
certainly  that  of  Ahmad  ibn  Hanbal.  He  was  the 
trust  and  strength  of  the  orthodox ;  that  he  stood 
fast  through  imprisonment  and  scourging  defeated 
the  plans  of  the  Mu'tazilites.  In  dealing  with  the 
development  of  law,  we  have  seen  what  his  legal  po- 
sition was.  The  same  held  in  theology.  Scholastic 
theology  (halam)  was  his  abomination.  Those  who 
disputed  over  doctrines  he  cast  out.  That  their  dog- 
matic position  was  the  same  as  his  made  no  differ- 
ence. For  him,  theological  truth  could  not  be  reached 
by  reasoning  {aql) ;  tradition  (naql)  from  the  fathers 
(as-salaf)  was  the  only  ground  on  which  the  dubious 
words  of  the  Qur'an  could  be  explained.     So,  in  his 


158  THEOLOGY 

long  examinations  before  the  officials  of  al-Ma*mnn 
and  al-Mu'tasim,  he  contented  himself  with  repeating 
either  the  words  of  the  Qur'an  which  for  him  were 
proofs  or  such  traditions  as  he  accepted.  Any  ap- 
proach to  drawing  a  consequence  he  utterly  rejected. 
When  they  argued  before  him,  he  kept  silence. 

What,  then,  we  may  ask,  was  the  net  result  of  this 
incident?  for  it  was  nothing  more.  The  Mu'tazilites 
dropped  back  into  their  former  position,  but  under 
changed  conditions.  The  sympathy  of  the  populace 
was  further  from  them  than  ever.  Ahmad  ibn  Han- 
bal,  saint  and  ascetic,  was  the  idol  of  the  masses ; 
and  he,  in  their  eyes,  had  maintained  single-handed 
the  honor  of  the  Word  of  God.  For  his  persecutors 
there  was  nothing  but  hatred.  And  after  he  had 
passed  away,  the  conflict  was  taken  up  with  still 
fiercer  bitterness  by  the  school  of  law  founded  by  his 
pupils.  They  continued  to  maintain  his  principles 
of  Qur'an  and  tradition  long  after  the  Mu'tazilites 
themselves  had  practically  vanished  from  the  scene, 
and  all  that  was  left  for  them  to  contend  against  was 
the  modified  system  of  scholastic  theology  which  is 
now  the  orthodox  theology  of  Islam.  With  these  re- 
actionary Hanbalites  we  shall  have  to  deal  later. 

The  Mu'tazilites,  on  their  side,  having  seen  the 
shipwreck  of  their  hopes  and  the  growing  storm  of 
popular  disfavor,  seem  to  have  turned  again  to  their 
scholastic  studies.  They  became  more  and  more  the- 
ologians affecting  a  narrower  circle,  and  less  and  less 
educators  of  the  world  at  large.  Their  system  be- 
came more  metaphysical  and  their  conclusions  more 
unintelligible  to  the  plain  man.     The  fate  which  has 


SCHOOLS   OF   MU'TxVZILlTES  159 

fallen  on   all  continued  efforts  of  tlie  Muslim  mind 
was  coming  upon  them.     Beggarly  speculations  and 
barren  hypotheses,  combats  of   words  over  names, 
sapped  them  of  life  and  reality.     "What  the  ill-fated 
friendship  of  al-Ma'mun  had  begun  was  carried  on 
and  out  by  the  closed   circle   of   Muslim   thought. 
They  separated  into  schools,  one  at  al-Basra  and  an- 
other at  Baghdad.     At  Baghdad  the  point  especially 
developed  was  the   old  question.  What  is  a  thing 
{shay)  ?     They  defined  a  thing,  practically,  as  a  con- 
cept that  could  be  known  and  of  which  something 
could  be  said.     Existence  {loujud)  did  not  matter. 
It  was  only  a  quality  which  could  be  there  or  not. 
With  it,  the  thing  was  an  entity  (maiojud) ;  without  it, 
a  non-entity  {ma'dum),  but  still  a  thing  with  all  equip- 
ment of   substance  {jatvhar)   and   accident  {arad)^ 
genus  and  species.    The  bearing  of  this  was  especially 
upon  the  doctrine  of  creation.     Practically,  by  God's 
adding  a  single  quality,  things  entered  the  sphere  of 
existence  and  ivere  for  us.     Here,  then,  is  evidently 
an  approach  to  a  doctrine  of  pre-existent  matter.    At 
al-Basra  the  relation  of  God  to  His  qualities  was  es- 
pecially discussed,  and  there  it  came  to  be  pretty 
nearly  a  family  dispute  between  al-Jubba'i  (d.  303) 
and  his  son  Abu  Hashim.     Orthodox  Islam  held  that 
God  has  qualities,  existent,  eternal,  added  to  His  es- 
sence ;  thus.  He  knows,  for  example,  by  such  a  quality 
of  knowledge.    The  students  of  Greek  philosophy  and 
the  Shi'ites  denied  this  and  said  that  God  knew  by 
His  essence.    We  have  seen  already  Mu'tazilite  views 
as  to  this  point.    Abu  Hadhayl  held  that  these  quali- 
ties were  God's  essence  and  not  in  it.    Thus,  He  knew 


160  THEOLOGY 

by  a  quality  of  knowledge,  but  that  quality  tuas  His 
essence.  Al-Jubba'i  contented  himself  with  safe- 
guarding this  statement.  God  knew  in  accordance 
with  His  essence,  but  it  was  neither  a  quality  nor  a 
state  {hal)  which  required  that  He  should  be  a 
knower.  The  orthodox  had  said  the  first ;  his  son, 
Abu  Hashim,  said  the  second.  He  held  that  we  know 
an  essence  and  know  it  under  different  conditions. 
The  conditions  varied  but  the  essence  remained. 
These  conditions  are  not  thinkable  by  themselves, 
for  we  know  them  only  in  connection  with  the  es- 
sence. These  are  states  ;  they  are  different  from  the 
essence,  but  do  not  exist  apart  from  it.  Al-Jubba'i 
opposed  to  this  a  doctrine  that  these  states  were 
really  subjective  in  the  mind  of  the  perceiver,  either 
generalizations  or  relationships  existing  mentally  but 
not  externally.  This  controversy  spun  itself  out  at 
great  length  through  centuries.  It  eventually  re- 
solved .itself  into  the  fundamental  metaphysical  in- 
quiry, What  is  a  thing  ?  A  powerful  school  came  to 
a  conclusion  that  would  have  delighted  the  soul  of 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.  Things  are  four,  they  said, 
entities,  non-entities,  states  and  relationships.  As 
we  have  seen  above,  al-Jubba'i  denied  the  reality  of 
both  states  and  relationships.  Orthodox  Islam  has 
been  of  a  divided  opinion. 

But  all  this  time,  other  movements  had  been  in 
progress,  some  of  which  were  to  be  of  larger  future 
importance  than  this  fossilizing  intellectualism.  In 
255  al-Jahiz  died.  Though  commonly  reckoned  a 
Mu'tazilite  he  Avas  really  a  man  of  letters,  free  in 
life  and  thought.     He  was  a  maker  of  books,  learned 


AL-JAIIIZ  ;   AL-KINDI  161 


> 


in  the  writings  of  the  philosophers  and  rather  in- 
clined to  the  doctrines  of  the  Tabi'iyun,  deistic  natu- 
ralists. His  confession  of  faith  was  of  the  utmost 
simplicity.  He  taught  that  whoever  held  that  God* 
had  neither  body  nor  form,  could  not  be  seen  with 
the  eyes,  was  just  and  willed  no  evil  deeds,  such  was 
a  Muslim  in  truth.  And,  further,  if  anyone  was  not 
capable  of  philosophical  reflection,  but  held  that 
Allah  was  his  Lord  and  that  Muhammad  was  the 
Apostle  of  Allah,  he  was  blameless  and  nothing  more 
should  be  required  of  him.  Here  we  have  evidently 
in  part  a  reaction  from  the  subtilties  of  controversy, 
and  in  part  an  attempt  to  broaden  theology  enough 
to  give  even  the  unsettled  a  chance  to  remain  in  the 
Muslim  Church.  Something  of  the  same  kind  we 
shall  find,  later,  in  the  case  of  Ibn  Kushd.  Finally, 
we  have  probably  to  see  in  his  remark  that  the 
Quran  was  a  body,  turned  at  one  time  into  a  man 
and  at  another  into  a  beast,  a  satirical  comment  on 
the  great  controversy  of  his  time. 

Al-Jahiz  may  be  for  us  a  link  with  the  philosophers 
proper,  the  students  of  the  wisdom  of  the  Greeks. 
He  represents  the  stand-point  of  the  educated  man 
of  the  time,  and  was  no  specialist  in  anything  but 
a  general  scepticism.  In  the  first  generation  of  the 
philosophers  of  Islam,  in  the  narrower  sense,  stands 
conspicuously  al-Kindi,  commonly  called  the  Philos- 
opher of  the  Arabs.  The  name  belongs  to  him  of 
right,  for  he  is  almost  the  only  example  of  a  student 
of  Aristotle,  sprung  from  the  blood  of  the  desert. 
But  he  was  hardly  a  philosopher  in  any  independent 
sense.     His  role   was   translating,  and  during   the 


162  THEOLOGY 

reigns  of  al-Ma'mun  and  al-Mu'tasim  a  mnltitude  of 
translations  and  original  works  de  oynni  scibili  came 
from  his  hands  ;  the  names  of  265  of  these  have  come 
down  to  us.  In  the  orthodox  reaction  under  al-Mu- 
tawakkil  he  fared  ill ;  his  library  was  confiscated  but 
afterward  restored.  He  died  about  260,  and  with 
him  dies  the  brief,  golden  century  of  eager  acquisi- 
tion, and  the  scholastic  period  enters  in  philosophy 
as  in  theology. 

That  the  glory  was  departing  from  Baghdad  and 
the  Khalifate  is  shown  by  the  second  important  name 
in  philosophy.     It  is  that  of  al-Farabi,  who  was  born 
at  Farab  in  Turkestan,  lived  and  worked  in  the  brill- 
iant circle  which  gathered  round  Sayf  ad-Dawla,  the 
Hamdanid,  at  his   court  at  Aleppo.     In  music,  in 
science,  in  philology,  and  in  philosophy,  he  was  alike 
master.     Aristotle  was  his  passion,  and  his  Arabic 
contemporaries  and  successors  united  in  calling  him 
the  second  teacher,  on  account  of  his  success  in  un- 
knotting the  tangles  of  the  Greek  system.     It  was  in 
truth  a  tangled  system  which  came  to  him,  and  a 
tangled    system  which  he  left.      The  MusHm  phi- 
losophers began,  in  their  innocence,  with  the  follow- 
ing positions  :  The  Quran  is  truth  and  philosophy  is 
truth ;    but  truth   can   only  be  one ;    therefore,  the 
Qur'an  and  philosophy  must  agree.     Philosophy  they 
accepted  in  whole-hearted  faith,  as  it  came  to  them 
from  the  Greeks  through  Egypt  and   Syria.     They 
took  it,  not  as  a  mass  of  more  or  less  contradictory 
speculation,  but  as  a  form  of  truth.     They,  in  fact, 
never  lost  a  certain  theological  attitude.     Under  such 
conditions,  then,  Plato  came  to  them;   but  it  was 


PLATO  ;   PLOTINUS  ;   ARISTOTLE  163 

mostly  Plato  as  interpreted  by  Porpliyrius,  that  is, 
as  neo-Platonism.  Aristotle,  too,  came  to  tliem  in 
the  guise  of  the  later  Peripatetic  schools.  But  iu 
Aristotle,  especially,  there  entered  a  perfect  knot  of 
entanglement  and  confusion.  During  the  reign  of 
al-Mu'tasim,  a  Christian  of  Emessa  in  the  Lebanon 
— the  history  in  details  is  obscure — translated  parts 
of  the  "  Enneads  "  of  Plotinus  into  Arabic  and  en- 
titled his  work  "The  Theology  of  Aristotle."  A 
more  unlucky  bit  of  literary  mischief  and  one  more 
far-reaching  in  its  consequences  has  never  been.  The 
Muslims  took  it  all  as  solemnly  as  they  took  the  text 
of  the  Qur'an.  These  two  great  masters,  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  they  said,  had  expounded  the  truth,  which 
is  one.  Therefore,  there  must  be  some  way  of  bring- 
ing thepa  into  agreement.  So  generations  of  toilers 
labored  valiantly  with  the  welter  of  translations  and 
pseudographs  to  get  out  of  them  and  into  them  the 
one  truth.  The  more  pious  added  the  third  element 
of  the  Qur'an,  and  it  must  remain  a  marvel  and  a 
magnificent  testimonial  to  their  skill  and  patience 
that  they  got  even  so  far  as  they  did  and  that  the 
whole  movement  did  not  end  in  simple  lunacy.  That 
al-Farabi  should  have  been  so  incisive  a  writer,  so 
wide  a  thinker  and  student;  that  Ibn  Sina  should 
have  been  so  keen  and  clear  a  scientist  and  logician ; 
that  Ibn  Rushd  should  have  known — really  known — 
and  commented  his  Aristotle  as  he  did,  shows  that 
the  human  brain,  after  all,  is  a  sane  brain  and  has  the 
power  of  unconsciously  rejecting  and  throwing  out 
nonsense  and  falsehood. 

But  it  is  not  wonderful  that,  dealing  with  such  ma- 


164  THEOLOGY 

terials  and  contradictions,  tliey  developed  a  tendency 
to  mysticism.  There  were  many  things  which  they 
felt  compelled  to  hold  which  could  only  be  defended 
and  rationalized  in  that  cloudy  air  and  slanting  light. 
Especially,  no  one  but  a  mystic  could  bring  together 
the  emanations  of  Plotinus,  the  ideas  of  Plato,  the 
spheres  of  Aristotle  and  the  seven- storied  heaven  of 
Muhammad.  With  this  matter  of  mysticism  we  shall 
have  to  deal  immediately.  Of  al-Farabi  it  is  enough 
to  say  that  he  was  one  of  the  most  patient  of  the 
laborers  at  that  impossible  problem..  It  seems  never 
to  have  occurred  to  him,  or  to  any  of  the  others,  that 
the  first  and  great  imperative  was  to  verify  his  refer- 
ences and  sources.  The  oriental,  like  the  mediseval 
scholastic,  tests  minutely  the  form  of  his  syllogism, 
but  takes  little  thought  whether  his  premises  state 
facts  or  not.  With  a  scrupulous  scepticism  in  deduc- 
tion, he  combines  a  childlike  acceptance  on  tradition 
or  on  the  narrowest  of  inductions. 

But  there  are  other  and  more  ominous  signs  in 
al-Farabi  of  the  scholastic  decline.  There  appears 
first  in  him  that  tendency  toward  the  writing  of 
encyclopaedic  compends,  which  always  means  super- 
ficiality and  the  commonplace.  Al-Farabi  himself 
could  not  be  accused  of  either,  but  that  he  thus 
claimed  all  knowledge  for  his  portion  showed  the 
risk  of  the  premature  circle  and  the  small  gain.  An- 
other is  mysticism.  He  is  a  neo-Platonist,  more  ex- 
actly a  Plotinian  ;  although  he  himself  would  not  have 
recognized  this  title.  He  held,  as  we  have  seen,  that 
he  was  simply  retelling  the  doctrines  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle.     But  he  was  also  a  devout  Muslim.     He 


AL-FARABI  165 

seems  to  have  taken  in  earnest  all  the  bizarre  details 
of  Muslim  cosmography  and  eschatology ;  the  Pen, 
the  Tablet,  the  Throne,  the  Angels  in  all  their  ranks 
and  functions  mingle  picturesquely  with  the  system 
of  Plotinus,  his  ev,  his  ^lrvxV'  his  vov<;,  his  receptive 
and  active  intellects.  But  to  make  tenable  this  posi- 
tion he  had  to  take  the  great  leap  of  the  mystic. 
Unto  us  these  things  are  impossible ;  with  God,  i.e., 
on  another  plane  of  existence,  they  are  the  simplest 
realities.  If  the  veil  were  taken  from  our  eyes  we 
would  see  them.  This  has  always  been  the  refuge  of 
the  devout  Muslim  who  has  tampered  with  science. 
We  shall  look  for  it  more  in  detail  when  we  come  to 
al-Ghazzali,  who  has  put  it  into  classical  form. 

Again,  he  was,  in  modern  terms,  a  monarchist  and 
a  clericalist.  His  conception  of  the  model  state  is  a 
strange  compound  of  the  republic  of  Plato  and  Shi- 
*  ite  dreams  of  an  infallible  Imam.  Its  roots  lie,  of 
course,  in  the  theocratic  idea  of  the  Muslim  state ; 
but  his  city,  which  is  to  take  in  all  mankind,  a  Holy 
Eoman  Empire  and  a  Holy  Catholic  Church  at  once, 
a  community  of  saints  ruled  by  sages,  shows  a  later 
influence  than  that  of  the  mother  city  of  Islam,  al- 
Madina,  under  Abu  Bakr  and  Umar.  The  influence 
is  that  of  the  Fatimids  with  their  capital,  al-Mahdiya, 
near  Tunis.  The  Hamdanids  were  Shi'ites  and  Sayf 
ad-Dawla,  under  whom  al-Farabi  enjoyed  peace  and 
protection,  was  a  vassal  of  the  Fatimid  Khalifas. 

This  brings  us  again  to  the  great  mystery  of  Mus- 
lim history.  "What  was  the  truth  of  the  Fatimid 
movement?  Was  the  family  of  the  Prophet  the 
fosterer  of  science  from  the  earliest  times?     What 


166  THEOLOGY 

degree  of  contact  had  tliey  with  the  Mu'tazilites  ? 
With  the  founders  of  grammar,  of  alchemy,  of  law  ? 
That  they  were  themselves  the  actual  beginners  of 
everything — and  everything  has  been  claimed  for 
them — we  may  put  down  to  legend.  But  one  thing 
does  stand  fast.  Just  as  al-Ma'mun  combined  the 
establishment  of  a  great  university  at  Baghdad  with 
a  favoring  of  the  Alids,  so  the  Fatimids  in  Cairo 
erected  a  great  hall  of  science  and  threw  all  their  in- 
fluence and  authority  into  the  spreading  and  extend- 
ing of  knowledge.  This  institution  seems  to  have 
been  a  combination  of  free  public  library  and  uni- 
versity, and  was  probably  the  gateway  connecting 
between  the  inner  circle  of  initiated  Fatimid  leaders 
and  the  outside,  uninitiated  world.  We  have  already 
seen  how  unhappy  were  the  external  effects  of  the 
Shi'ite,  and  especially  of  the  Fatimid,  propaganda 
on  the  Muslim  world.  But  from  time  to  time  we  be- 
come aware  of  a  deep  undercurrent  of  scientific  and 
philosophical  labor  and  investigation  accompanying 
that  propaganda,  and  striving  after  knowledge  and 
truth.  It  belongs  to  the  life  below  the  surface,  which 
we  can  know  only  through  its  occasional  outbursts. 
Some  of  these  are  given  above ;  others  will  follow. 
The  whole  matter  is  obscure  to  the  last  degree,  and 
dogmatic  statements  and  explanations  are  not  in 
place.  It  may  be  that  it  was  only  a  natural  draw- 
ing together  on  the  part  of  all  the  different  forces 
and  movements  that  were  under  a  ban  and  had  to 
live  in  secrecy  and  stillness.  It  may  be  that  the 
students  of  the  new  sciences  passed  over,  simply 
through  their  studies  and  political  despair — as  has 


IKHWAN-AS-SAFA  167 

often  happened  in  our  day — into  different  degrees  of 
nihilism,  or,  at  the  other  extreme,  into  a  passionate 
searching  for,  and  dependence  on,  some  absolute 
guide,  an  infallible  Imam.  It  may  be  that  we  have 
read  wrongl}^  the  whole  history  of  the  Eatimid  move- 
ment ;  that  it  was  in  reality  a  deeply  laid  and  slowly 
ripened  plan  to  bring  the  rule  of  the  world  into  the 
control  of  a  band  of  philosophers,  whose  task  it  was 
to  be  to  rule  the  human  race  and  gradually  to  educate 
it  into  self-rule  ;  that  they  saw — these  unknown  dev- 
otees of  science  and  truth — no  other  way  of  break- 
ing down  the  barriers  of  Islam  and  setting  free  the 
spirits  of  men.  A  wild  hypothesis !  But  in  face  of 
the  real  mystery  no  hypothesis  can  seem  wild. 

Closely  allied  with  both  al-Farabi  and  the  Fati- 
mids  is  the  association  known  as  the  Sincere  Breth- 
ren {Ikliwan  as-safa).  It  existed  at  al-Basra  in  the 
middle  of  the  fourth  century  of  the  Hijra  during 
the  breathing  space  which  the  free  intellectual  life 
enjoyed  after  the  capture  of  Baghdad  by  the  Bmvay- 
hids  in  334.  It  will  be  remembered  how  that  Per- 
sian dynasty  was  Shi'ite  by  creed  and  how  it,  for  the 
time,  completely  clipped  the  claws  of  the  orthodox 
and  Sunnite  Abbasid  Khalifas.  The  only  thing, 
thereafter,  which  heretics  and  philosophers  had  to 
fear  was  the  enmity  of  the  populace,  but  that  seems 
to  have  been  great  enough.  The  Hanbalite  mob  of 
Baghdad  had  grown  to  be  a  thing  of  terror.  It  was, 
then,  an  educational  campaign  on  which  this  new 
philosophy  had  to  enter.  Their  programme  was  by 
means  of  clubs,  propagating  themselves  and  spread- 
ing over  the  country  from  al-Basra  and  Baghdad,  to 


168  THEOLOGY 

reach  all  educated  people  and  introduce  among  them 
gradually  a  complete  change  in  their  religious  and 
scientific  ideas.     Their  teaching  was  the  same  combi- 
nation of    neo-Platonic  speculation  and    mysticism 
with  Aristotelian  natural  science,  wrapped  in  Mu'taz- 
ilite  theology,  that  we  have  already  known.     Only 
there  was  added  to  it  a  Pythagorean  reverence  for 
numbers,  and  everything,  besides,  was  treated  in  an 
eminently  superficial  and  popularized  manner.     Our 
knowledge  of  the  Fraternity  and  its  objects  is  based 
on  its   publication,   "The   Epistles   of   the   Sincere 
Brethren  "  (BasaHl  ikhivan  as-safa)  and  upon  scanty 
historical  notices.     The  Epistles  are  fifty  or  fifty-one 
in  number  and  cover  the  field  of  human  knowledge  as 
then  conceived.     They  form,  in  fact,  an  Arabic  En- 
cyclopedie.      The   founders   of    the   Fraternity,   and 
authors,  presumably,  of  the  Epistles,  were  at  most 
ten.     We  have  no  certain  knowledge  that  the  Fra- 
ternity ever  took  even  its  first  step  and  spread  to 
Baghdad.     Beyond  that  almost  certainly  the  develop- 
ment did  not  pass.     The  division  of  members  into 
four— learners,  teachers,  guides,  and  drawers  near  to 
God  in  supernatural  vision— and  the  plan  of  regular 
meetings  of  each  circle  for  study  and  mutual  edifica- 
tion remained  in  its  paper  form.     The  society  was 
half  a  secret  one  and  lacked,  apparently,  vitality  and 
energy.     There  was  among  its  founders  no  man  of 
weight  and  character.     So  it  passed  away  and  has 
left  only  these  Epistles  which  have  come  down  to  us 
in  numerous  MSS.,  showing  how  eagerly  they  have 
been  read  and  copied  and  how  much  influence  they 
at  least  must  have  exercised.     That  influence  must 


THE  IKHWAN   AND   THE   FATIMIDS  169 

have  been  very  mixed.  It  was,  it  is  true,  for  intel- 
lectual life,  yet  it  carried  with  it  in  a  still  higher  de- 
gree the  defects  we  have  already  noticed  in  al-Farabi. 
To  them  must  be  added  the  most  simple  skimming 
of  all  real  philosophical  problems  and  a  treatment  of 
nature  and  natural  science  which  had  lost  all  con- 
nection with  facts. 

It  has  been  suggested,  and  the  suggestion  seems 
luminous  and  fertile,  that  this  Fraternity  was  simply 
a  part  of  the  great  Fatimid  propaganda  which,  as  we 
know,  honey-combed  the  ground  everywhere  under 
the  Sunnite  Abbasids.  Descriptions  which  have 
reached  us  of  the  methods  followed  by  the  leaders  of 
the  Fraternity  agree  exactly  with  those  of  the  mis- 
sionaries of  the  Isma'ilians.  They  raised  difficulties 
and  suggested  serious  questionings  ;  hinted  at  possi- 
ble answers  but  did  not  give  them ;  referred  to  a 
source  where  all  questions  would  be  answered. 
Again,  their  catch-words  and  fixed  phrases  are  the 
same  as  those  afterward  used  by  the  Assassins,  and 
we  have  traces  of  these  Epistles  forming  a  part  of 
the  sacred  library  of  the  Assassins.  It  is  to  be  re- 
membered that  the  Assassins  were  not  simply  robber 
bands  who  struck  terror  by  their  methods.  Both  the 
western  and  the  eastern  branches  were  devoted  to 
science,  and  it  may  be  that  in  their  mountain  for- 
tresses there  was  the  most  absolute  devotion  to  true 
learning  that  then  existed.  When  the  Mongols  capt- 
ured Alamut,  they  found  it  rich  in  MSS.  and  in 
.instruments  and  apparatus  of  every  kind.  It  is  then 
possible  that  the  elevated  eclecticism  of  the  Ihhivaii 
as-safa  was  the  real  doctrine  of  the  Fatimids,  the 


170  THEOLOGY 

Assassins,  the  Qarmatians  and  the  Druses  ;  certainly, 
wherever  we  can  test  them  there  is  the  most  singu- 
lar agreement.  It  is  a  mechanical  and  sesthetic  pan- 
theism, a  glorification  of  Pythagoreanism,  with  its 
music  and  numbers  ;  idealistic  to  the  last  degree ;  a 
worship  and  pursuit  of  a  conception  of  a  harmony 
and  beauty  in  all  the  universe,  to  find  which  is  to 
find  and  know  the  Creator  Himself.  It  is  thus  far 
removed  from  materialism  and  atheism,  but  could 
easily  be  misrepresented  as  both.  This,  it  is  true,  is 
a  very  different  explanation  from  the  one  given  in 
our  first  Part ;  it  can  only  be  put  along-side  of  that 
and  left  there.  The  one  expresses  the  practical 
effect  of  the  Isma'ilians  in  Islam;  the  other  what 
may  have  been  their  ideal.  However  we  judge  them, 
we  must  always  remember  that  somewhere  in  their 
teaching,  at  its  best,  there  was  a  strange  attraction 
for  thinking  and  troubled  men.  Nasir  ibn  Khusraw, 
a  Persian  Faust,  found  peace  at  Cairo  between  437 
and  444  in  recognizing  the  divine  Imamship  of  al- 
Mustansir,  and  after  a  life  of  persecution  died  in 
that  faith  as  a  hermit  in  the  mountains  of  Badakh- 
shan  in  481.  The  great  Spanish  poet,  Ibn  Hani, 
who  died  in  362,  similarly  accepted  al-Mu'izz  as  his 
spiritual  chief  and  guide. 

Another  eclectic  sect,  but  on  a  very  different  prin- 
ciple, was  that  of  the  Karramites,  founded  by  Abu  Abd 
Allah  ibn  Karram,  who  died  in  256.  Its  teachings 
had  the  honor  to  be  accepted  and  protected  by 
no  less  a  man  than  the  celebrated  Mahmud  of  Ghazna 
(388-421),  Mahmud  the  Idol-breaker,  the  first  in- 
vader of  India  and  the  patron  of  al-Beruni,  Pirdawsi, 


IBN   KARRAM  171 

Ibn  Sina  and  many  another.  But  that,  to  which  we 
will  return,  belongs  to  a  later  date  and,  probably,  to 
a  modified  form  of  Ibn  Karram's  teaching.  For  him- 
self, he  was  an  ascetic  of  Sijistan  and,  according  to 
the  story,  a  man  of  no  education.  He  lost  himself 
in  theological  subtleties  which  he  seems  to  have 
failed  to  understand.  However,  out  of  them  all  he 
put  together  a  book  which  he  called  ' '  The  Punish- 
ment of  the  Grave,"  which  spread  widely  in  Khura- 
san. It  was,  in  part,  a  frank  recoil  to  the  crassest 
anthropomorphism.  Thus,  for  him,  God  actually  sat 
upon  the  throne,  was  in  a  place,  had  direction  and 
so  could  move  from  one  point  to  another.  He  had  a 
body  with  flesh,  blood,  and  limbs ;  He  could  be  em- 
braced by  those  who  were  purified  to  the  requisite 
point.  It  was  a  literal  acceptance  of  the  material 
expressions  of  the  Qur'an  along  with  a  consideration 
of  how  they  could  be  so,  and  an  explanation  by  com- 
parison with  men — all  opposed  to  the  principle  hila 
kayfa.  So,  apparently,  we  must  understand  the 
curious  fact  that  he  was  also  a  Murji'ite  and  held 
faith  to  be  only  acknowledgment  with  the  tongue. 
All  men,  except  professed  apostates,  are  believers,  he 
said,  because  of  that  primal  covenant,  taken  by  God 
with  the  seed  of  Adam,  when  He  asked,  "  Am  I  not 
your  Lord?  "  {Alastu  hi-rahhikum)  and  they,  brought 
forth  from  Adam's  loins  for  the  purpose,  made  an- 
swer, "  Yea,  verily,  in  this  covenant  we  remain  until 
we  formally  cast  it  off."  This,  of  course,  involved 
taking  God's  qualities  in  the  most  literal  sense.  So, 
if  we  are  to  see  in  the  Mu'tazilites  scholastic  com- 
mentators trying  to  reduce  Muhammad,  the  poet,  to 


172  THEOLOGY 

logic  and  sense,  we  must  see  in  Ibn  Karram  one 
of  those  wooden-minded  literalists,  for  whom  a  meta- 
phor is  a  ridiculous  lie  if  it  cannot  be  taken  in  its 
external  meaning.  He  was  part  of  the  great  stream 
of  conservative  reaction,  in  which  we  find  also  such 
a  man  as  Ahmad  ibn  Hanbal.  But  the  saving  salt  of 
Ahmad's  sense  and  reverence  kept  him  by  the  safe 
proviso  "  without  considering  how  and  without  com- 
parison." All  Ahmad's  later  followers  were  not  so 
wise.  In  his  doctrine  of  the  state  Ibn  Karram 
inclined  to  the  Kharijites. 

Before  we  return  to  al-Jubba'i  and  the  fate  of  the 
Mu'tazilites,  it  remains  to  trace  more  precisely  the 
thread  of  mysticism,  that  kashf,  revelation,  which  we 
have  already  mentioned  several  times.  Its  funda- 
mental fact  is  that  it  had  two  sides,  an  ascetic  and  a 
speculative,  different  in  degree,  in  spirit  and  in  result, 
and  yet  so  closely  entangled  that  the  same  mystic 
has  been  assigned,  in  good  and  in  bad  faith,  as  an 
adherent  of  both. 

It  is  to  the  form  of  mysticism  which  sprang  from 
asceticism  that  we  must  first  turn.  Attention  has 
been  given  above  to  the  wandering  monks  and  her- 
mits, the  sa'ihs  (wanderers)  and  rahibs  who  caught 
Muhammad's  attention  and  respect.  We  have  seen, 
too,  how  Muslim  imitators  began  in  their  turn  to 
wander  through  the  land,  clad  in  the  coarse  woollen 
robes  which  gave  them  the  name  of  Sufis,  and  liv- 
ing upon  the  alms  of  the  pious.  How  early  these 
appeared  in  any  number  and  as  a  fixed  profession  is 
uncertain,  but  we  find  stories  in  circulation  of  meet- 
ings between  such  mendicant  friars  and  al-Hasan  al- 


WOMEN   SAINTS  173 

Basri  himself.  Women,  too,  were  among  them,  and 
it  is  possible  that  to  their  influence  a  development 
of  devotional  love-poetry  was  due.  At  least,  many- 
verses  of  this  kind  are  ascribed  to  a  certain  Babi'a, 
an  ascetic  and  ecstatic  devotee  of  the  most  extreme 
other- worldliness,  who  died  in  135.  Many  other  wom- 
en had  part  in  the  contemplative  life.  Among  them 
may  be  mentioned,  to  show  its  grasp  and  spread, 
A'isha,  daughter  of  Ja'far  as-Sadiq,  who  died  in  145; 
Fatima  of  Naysabur,  who  died  in  223,  and  the  Lady 
Nafisa,  a  contemporary  and  rival  in  learning  with 
ash-Shafi'i  and  the  marvel  of  her  time  in  piety  and 
the  ascetic  life.  Her  grave  is  one  of  the  most  vener- 
ated spots  in  Cairo,  and  at  it  wonders  are  still  worked 
and  prayer  is  always  answered.  She  was  a  descend- 
ant of  al-Hasan,  the  martyred  ex-Khalifa,  and  an 
example  of  how  the  fated  family  of  the  Prophet  was 
an  early  school  for  women  saints.  Even  in  the 
Heathenism  we  have  traces  of  female  penitents  and 
hermits,  and  the  tragedy  of  Ali  and  his  sons  and  de- 
scendants gave  scope  for  the  self-sacrifice,  loving  ser- 
vice and  religious  enthusiasm  with  which  women  are 
dowered. 

All  these  stood  and  stand  in  Islam  on  exactly 
the  same  footing  as  men.  The  distinction  in  Eo- 
man  Christendom  that  a  woman  cannot  be  a  priest 
there  falls  away,  for  in  Islam  is  neither  priest  nor 
layman.  They  lived  either  as  solitaries  or  in  conven- 
tual life  exactly  as  did  the  men.  They  were  called 
by  the  same  terms  in  feminine  form ;  they  were  Sufi- 
yas  beside  the  Sufis  ;  Zahidas  (ascetics)  beside  the 
Zahids ;  Waliyas  (friends  of  God)  beside  the  Walis ; 


174  THEOLOGY 

Abidas  (devotees)  beside  the  Abids.  They  worked 
wonders  {karainat,  closely  akin  to  the  ')(aplaiJbaTa  of 
1  Cor.  xii,  9)  by  the  divine  grace,  and  still,  as  we 
have  seen,  at  their  own  graves  such  are  granted 
through  them  to  the  faithful,  and  their  intercession 
(sJiafa^a)  is  invoked.  Their  religious  exercises  were 
the  same ;  they  held  dhikrs  and  women  darwishes 
3^et  dance  to  singing  and  music  in  order  to  bring  on 
fits  of  ecstasy.  To  state  the  case  generally,  whatever 
is  said  hereafter  of  mysticism  and  its  workings 
among  men  must  be  taken  as  applying  to  women 
also. 

To  return :  one  of  the  earliest  male  devotees  of 
whom  we  have  distinct  note  is  Ibrahim  ibn  Adham. 
He  was  a  wanderer  of  royal  blood,  drifted  from  Balkh 
in  Afghanistan  to  al-Basra  and  to  Mecca.  He  died 
in  161.  Contempt  for  the  learning  of  lawyers  and 
for  external  forms  appears  in  him  ;  obedience  to  God, 
contemplation  of  death,  death  to  the  world  formed 
his  teaching.  Another,  Da'ud  ibn  Nusayr,  who  died 
in  165,  was  wont  to  say,  "  Flee  men  as  thou  fleest  a 
lion.  Fast  from  the  world  and  let  the  breaking  of 
thy  fast  be  when  thou  diest."  Another,  al-Fudayl 
ibn  lyad  of  Khurasan,  who  died  in  187,  was  a  robber 
converted  by  a  heavenly  voice ;  he  cast  aside  the 
world,  and  his  utterances  show  that  he  lapsed  into 
the  passivity  of  quietism. 

Reference  has  already  been  made  in  the  chapter 
on  jurisprudence  to  the  development  of  asceticism 
which  came  with  the  accession  of  the  Abbasids.  The 
disappointed  hopes  of  the  old  believers  found  an  out- 
let in  the  contemplative  life.     They  withdrew  from 


PASSAGE   OF   ASCETICISM   TO   ECSTASY        175 

the  world  and  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  its  rul- 
ers ;  their  wealth  and  everything  connected  with 
them  they  regarded  as  unclean.  Ahmad  ibn  Hanbal 
in  his  later  life  had  to  use  all  his  obstinacy  and  in- 
genuity to  keep  free  of  the  court  and  its  contamina- 
tion. Another  was  this  al-Fudayl.  Stories — chrono- 
logically impossible — are  told  how  he  rebuked  Harun 
ar-Rashid  for  his  luxury  and  tyranny  and  denounced 
to  his  face  his  manner  of  life.  With  such  an  attitude 
to  those  round  him  he  could  have  had  little  joy  in  his 
devotion.  So  it  was  said,  "When  al-Fudayl  died, 
sadness  was  removed  from  the  world." 

But  soon  the  recoil  came.  Under  the  spur  of 
such  exercises  and  thoughts,  the  ecstatic  oriental 
temperament  began  to  revel  in  expressions  borrowed 
from  human  love  and  earthly  wine.  Such  we  find 
by  Ma'ruf  of  al-Karkh,  a  district  of  Baghdad,  who 
died  in  200,  and  whose  tomb,  saved  by  popular 
reverence,  is  one  of  the  few  ancient  sites  in  modern 
Baghdad  ;  and  by  his  greater  disciple.  Sari  as-Saqati, 
who  died  in  257.  To  this  last  is  ascribed,  but  dubi- 
ously, the  first  use  of  the  word  taiuJiid  to  signify  the 
union  of  the  soul  with  God.  The  figure  that  the 
heart  is  a  mirror  to  image  back  God  and  that  it  is 
darkened  by  the  things  of  the  body  appears  in  Abu 
Sulayman  of  Damascus,  who  died  in  215.  A  more 
celebrated  ascetic,  who  died  in  227,  Bishr  al-Hafi 
(bare-foot),  speaks  of  God  directly  as  the  Beloved 
{Jiahih).  Al-Harith  al-Muhasibi  was  a  contemporary 
of  Ahmad  ibn  Hanbal  and  died  in  243.  The  only 
thing  in  him  to  which  Ahmad  could  take  exception 
was  that  he  made  use  of  kalam  in  refuting  the  Mu'ta- 


176  THEOLOGY 

zilites ;  even  this  suspicion  against  him  he  is  said 
to  have  abandoned.  Sari  and  Bishr,  too,  were  close 
friends  of  Ahmad's.  Dhu-n-Nun,  the  Egyptian  Sufi, 
who  died  in  245,  is  in  more  dubious  repute.  He  is 
said  to  have  been  the  first  to  formulate  the  doctrine 
of  ecstatic  states  {lialsj  maqamas) ;  but  if  he  went  no 
further  than  this,  his  orthodoxy,  in  the  broad  sense, 
should  be  above  suspicion.  Islam  has  now  come  to 
accept  these  as  right  and  fitting.  Perhaps  the  great- 
est name  in  early  Sufiism  is  that  of  al- Junayd  (d.  297) ; 
on  it  no  shadow  of  heresy  has  ever  fallen.  He  was 
a  master  in  theology  and  law,  reverenced  as  one  of 
the  greatest  of  the  early  doctors.  Questions  of  taivliid 
he  is  said  to  have  discussed  before  his  pupils  with 
shut  doors.  But  this  was  probably  taioliid  in  the 
theological  and  not  in  the  mystical  sense — against 
the  Mu'tazilites  and  not  on  the  union  of  the  soul  with 
God.  Yet  he,  too,  knew  the  ecstatic  life  and  fell 
fainting  at  verses  which  struck  into  his  soul.  Ash- 
Shibli  (d.  334)  was  one  of  his  disciples,  but  seems  to 
have  given  himself  more  completely  to  the  ascetic 
and  contemplative  life.  In  verses  by  him  we  find  the 
vocabulary  of  the  amorous  intercourse  with  God  fully 
developed.  The  last  of  this  group  to  be  mentioned 
here  shall  be  Abu  Talib  al-Makki,  who  died  in  386. 
It  is  his  distinction  to  have  furnished  a  text-book  of 
Sufiism  that  is  in  use  to  this  day.  He  wrote  and 
spoke  openly  on  taivhid,  now  in  the  Sufi  sense,  and 
got  into  trouble  as  a  heretic,  but  his  memory  has 
been  restored  to  orthodoxy  by  the  general  agreement 
of  Islam.  When,  in  488,  al-Ghazzali  set  himself  to 
seek  light  in  Sufiism,  among  the  treatises  he  studied 


GROWTH   OF   FRATEENITIES  177 

were  the  books  of  four  of  those  mentioned  above, 
Abu  Talib,  al-Muhasibi,  al-Junaycl,  and  ash-Shibli. 

In  the  case  of  these  and  all  the  others  already  spoken 
of  there  was  nothing  but  a  very  simple  and  natural  de- 
velopment such  as  could  easily  be  paralleled  in  Europe. 
The  earliest  Muslims  were  burdened,  as  we  have  seen, 
with  the  fear  of  the  terrors  of  an  avenging  God.  The 
world  was  evil  and  fleeting ;  the  only  abiding  good 
was  in  the  other  world ;  so  their  religion  became  an 
ascetic  other-worldliness.  They  fled  into  the  wilder- 
ness from  the  wrath  to  come.  Wandering,  either 
solitary  or  in  companies,  was  the  special  sign  of  the 
true  Sufi.  The  young  men  gave  themselves  over  to 
the  guidance  of  the  older  men ;  little  circles  of  dis- 
ciples gathered  round  a  venerated  Shaykh  ;  fraterni- 
ties began  to  form.  So  we  find  it  in  the  case  of  al-Jun- 
ayd,  so  in  that  of  Sari  as-Saqati.  Next  would  come 
a  monastery,  rather  a  rest-house ;  for  only  in  the  win- 
ter and  for  rest  did  they  remain  fixed  in  a  place  for 
any  time.  Of  such  a  monastery  there  is  a  trace  at 
Damascus  in  150  and  in  Khurasan  about  200.  Then, 
just  as  in  Europe,  begging  friars  organized  them- 
selves. In  faith  they  were  rather  conservative  than 
anything  else ;  touched  with  a  religious  passivism 
which  easily  developed  into  quietism.  Their  ecsta- 
sies went  little  beyond  those,  for  instance,  of  Thomas 
a  Kempis,  though  struck  with  a  warmer  oriental  fer- 
vor. 

The  points  on  which  the  doctors  of  Islam  took 
exception  to  these  earlier  Sufis  are  strikingly  differ- 
ent from  what  we  would  expect.  They  concern  the 
practical  life  far  more  than  theological  speculation. 


178  THEOLOGY 

As  was  natural  in  the  case  of  professional  devotees,  a 
constantly  prayerful  attitude  began  to  assume  impor- 
tance beside  and  in  contrast  to  the  formal  use  of  the 
five  daily  prayers,  the  salaivat.  This  development 
was  in  all  probability  aided  by  the  existence  in  Syria 
of  the  Christian  sect  of  the  Euchites,  who  exalted 
the  duty  of  prayer  above  all  other  religious  obliga- 
tions. These,  also,  abandoned  property  and  obliga- 
tions and  wandered  as  poor  brethren  over  the  country. 
They  were  a  branch  of  Hesychasts,  the  quietistic 
Greek  monks  who  eventually  led  to  the  controversy 
concerning  the  uncreated  light  manifested  at  the 
transfiguration  on  Mount  Tabor  and  added  a  doctrine 
to  the  Eastern  Church.  Considering  these  points,  it 
can  hardly  be  doubted  that  there  was  some  historical 
connection  and  relation  here,  not  only  Avith  earlier 
but  also  with  later  Sufiism.  There  is  a  striking  re- 
semblance between  the  Sufis  seeking  by  patient  intro- 
spection to  see  the  actual  light  of  God's  presence  in 
their  hearts,  and  the  Greek  monks  in  Athos,  sitting 
solitarily  in  their  cells  and  seeking  the  divine  light  of 
Mount  Tabor  in  contemplation  of  their  navels. 

But  our  immediate  point  is  the  matter  of  constant, 
free  prayer.  In  the  Qur'an  (xxxiii,  41)  the  believers 
are  exhorted  to  "  remember  (dhtJcr)  God  often ;  '* 
this  command  the  Sufis  obeyed  with  a  correlative  de- 
preciation of  the  five  canonical  prayers.  Their  meet- 
ings for  the  purpose,  much  like  our  own  prayer- 
meetings,  still  more  like  the  "  class-meetings  "  of  the 
early  Methodists,  as  opposed  to  stated  public  worship, 
were  called  dhikrs.  These  services  were  fiercely 
attacked  by  the  orthodox  theologians,  but  survived 


TAWAKKUL  179 

and  are  the  darwish  functions  which  tourists  still  go 
to  see  at  Constantinople  and  Cairo.  But  the  more 
private  and  personal  dhikrs  of  individual  Sufis,  each 
in  his  house  repeating  his  Qur'anic  litanies  through 
the  night,  until  to  the  passer-by  it  sounded  like  the 
humming  of  bees  or  the  unceasing  drip  of  roof-gut- 
ters, these  seem,  in  the  course  of  the  third  century,  to 
have  fallen  before  ridicule  and  accusations  of  heresy. 

Another  point  against  the  earlier  Sufis  was  their 
abuse  of  the  principle  of  taiuakkul,  dependence  upon 
God.  They  gave  up  their  trades  and  professions ; 
they  even  gave  up  the  asking  for  alms.  Their 
ideal  was  to  be  absolutely  at  God's  disposal,  utterly 
cast  upon  His  direct  sustenance  {rizq).  No  anxiety 
for  their  daily  bread  was  permitted  to  them  ;  they 
must  go  through  the  world  separated  from  it  and  its 
needs  and  looking  up  to  God.  Only  one  who  can  do 
this  is  properly  an  acknowledger  of  God's  unity,  a 
true  Muiuahhid.  To  such,  God  would  assuredly 
open  the  door  of  help ;  they  were  at  His  gate ;  and 
the  biographies  of  the  saints  are  full  of  tales  how  His 
help  used  to  come. 

To  this  it  may  be  imagined  that  the  more  sober, 
even  among  Sufis,  made  vehement  objection.  It  fell 
under  two  heads.  One  was  that  of  kash,  the  gaining 
of  daily  bread  by  labor.  The  examples  of  the  hus- 
bandman who  casts  his  seed  into  the  ground  and  then 
depends  upon  God,  of  the  merchant  who  travels  with 
his  wares  in  similar  trust,  were  held  up  against  the 
wandering  but  useless  monk.  As  always,  traditions 
w^ere  forged  on  both  sides.  Said  a  man — apjoarently 
in  a  spirit  of   jDrophecy — one  day  to  the  Prophet, 


180  THEOLOGY 

''  Sliall  I  let  my  camel  run  free  and  trust  in  God  ?  " 
Replied  the  Prophet,  or  someone  for  him  with  a  good 
imitation  of  his  humorous  common-sense,  "  Tie  up 
your  camel  and  trust  in  God."  The  other  head  was 
the  use  of  remedies  in  sickness.  The  whole  contro- 
versy parallels  strikingly  the  "  mental  science "  and 
"  Christian  science  "  of  the  present  day.  Medicine, 
it  was  held,  destroyed  taioakkuL  In  the  fourth  century 
in  Persia  this  insanity  ran  high  and  many  books  were 
written  for  it  and  against  it.  The  author  of  one  on 
the  first  side  was  consulted  in  an  obstinate  case  of 
headache.  "  Put  my  book  under  your  pillow,"  he  said, 
"and  trust  in  God."  On  both  these  points  the  usage 
of  the  Prophet  and  the  Companions  was  in  the  teeth 
of  the  Sufi  position.  They  had  notoriously  earned 
their  living,  honestly  or  dishonestly,  and  had  pos- 
sessed all  the  credulity  of  semi-civilization  toward  the 
most  barbaric  and  multifarious  remedies.  So  the 
agreement  of  Islam  eventually  righted  itself,  though 
the  question  in  its  intricacies  and  subtilties  remained 
for  centuries  a  thing  of  delight  for  theologians.  In 
the  end  only  the  wildest  fanatics  held  by  absolute 
taivakkul. 

But  all  this  time  the  second  form  of  Sufiism  had 
been  slowly  forcing  its  way.  It  was  essentially  spec- 
ulative and  theological  rather  than  ascetic  and  de- 
votional. When  it  gained  the  upper  hand,  zaldd 
(ascetic)  was  no  longer  a  convertible  term  with  Sufi. 
We  pass  over  the  boundary  between  Thomas  a  Kempis 
and  St.  Francis  to  Eckhart  and  Suso.  The  roots  of 
this  movement  cannot  be  hard  to  find  in  the  light  of 
what   has   preceded.     They   lie   partly   in  the   neo- 


SPECULATIVE   SUFIISM  181 

Platouism  wliicli  is  the  foundation  of  the  philosophy 
of  Islam.  Probably  it  did  not  come  to  the  Sufis 
along  the  same  channels  by  which  it  reached  al- 
Farabi.  It  was  rather  through  the  Christian  mystics 
and,  perhaps,  especially  through  the  Pseudo-Dionys- 
ius  the  Areopagite,  and  his  asserted  teacher,  Stephen 
bar  Sudaili  with  his  Syriac  "Book  of  Hierotheos." 
"VYe  need  not  here  consider  whether  the  Monophysite 
heresy  is  to  be  reckoned  in  as  one  of  the  results  of 
the  dying  neo-Platonism.  It  is  true  that  outlying 
forms  of  it  meant  the  frank  deifying  of  a  man  and 
thus  raised  the  possibility  of  the  equal  deifying  of 
any  other  man  and  of  all  men.  But  there  is  no  cer- 
tainty that  these  views  had  an  influence  in  Islam.  It 
is  enough  that  from  a.d.  533  we  find  the  Pseudo- 
Dionysius  quoted  and  his  influence  strong  with  the 
ultra  Monophysites,  and  still  more,  thereafter,  with 
the  whole  mystical  movement  in  Christendom.  Ac- 
cording to  it,  all  is  akin  in  nature  to  the  Absolute, 
and  all  this  life  below  is  only  a  reflection  of  the 
glories  of  the  upper  sphere,  where  God  is.  Through 
the  sacraments  and  a  hierarchy  of  angels  man  is  led 
back  toward  Him.  Only  in  ecstasy  can  man  come  to 
a  knowledge  of  Him.  The  Trinity,  sin  and  the 
atonement  fade  out  of  view.  The  incarnation  is  but 
an  example  of  how  the  divine  and  the  human  can 
join.  All  is  an  emanation  or  an  emission  of  grace 
from  God ;  and  the  yearnings  of  man  are  back  to  his 
source.  The  revolving  spheres,  the  groaning  and 
travailing  nature  are  striving  to  return  to  their  origin. 
When  this  conception  had  seized  the  Oriental  Church  ; 
when  it  had  passed  into  Islam  and  dominated  its 


182  THEOLOGY 

emotional  and  religious  life  ;  when  through  the  trans- 
lation of  the  Pseudo-Dionysius  by  Scotus  Erigena  in 
850,  it  had  begun  the  long  contest  of  idealism  in 
Europe,  the  dead  school  of  Plotinus  had  won  the 
field,  and  its  influence  ruled  from  the  Oxus  to  the 
Atlantic. 

But  the  roots  of  Sufiism  struck  also  in  another 
direction.  We  have  already  seen  an  early  tendency 
to  regard  Ali  and,  later,  members  of  his  house  as  in- 
incarnations  of  divinity.  In  the  East,  where  God 
comes  near  to  man,  the  conception  of  God  in  man  is 
not  difficult.  The  Semitic  prophet  through  whom 
God  speaks  easily  slips  over  into  a  divine  being  in 
whom  God  exists  and  may  be  worshipped.  But  if 
with  one,  why  not  with  another?  May  it  not  be 
possible  by  purifying  exercises  to  reach  this  unity  ? 
If  one  is  a  Son  of  God,  may  not  all  become  that  if 
they  but  take  the  means?  The  half -understood  pan- 
theism which  always  lurks  behind  oriental  fervors 
claims  its  due.  From  his  wild  whirling  dance,  the 
darwish,  stung  to  cataleptic  ecstasy  by  the  throbbing 
of  the  drums  and  the  lilting  chant,  sinks  back  into 
the  unconsciousness  of  the  divine  oneness.  He  has 
passed  temporarily  from  this  scene  of  multiplicity 
into  the  sea  of  God's  unity  and,  at  death,  if  he  but 
persevere,  he  will  reach  that  haven  where  he  fain 
would  be  and  will  abide  there  forever.  Here,  we  have 
not  to  do  with  calm  philosophers  rearing  their  sys- 
tems in  labored  speculations,  but  with  men,  often 
untaught,  seeking  the  salvation  of  their  souls  ear- 
nestly and  with  tears. 

One  of  the  earliest  of  the  pantheistic  school  was 


PANTHEISTIC   SCHOOL  183 

Abu  Yazid  al-Bistami  (cl.  261).  He  was  of  Persian 
parentage,  and  his  father  had  been  a  follower  of  Za- 
rathustra.  As  an  ascetic  he  was  of  the  highest  re- 
pute ;  he  was  also  an  author  of  eminence  on  Sufiism 
(al-Ghazzali  used  his  books)  and  he  joined  to  his 
devout  learning  and  self- mortification  clear  miracu- 
lous gifts.  But  equally  clear  was  his  pantheistic 
drift  and  his  name  has  come  down  linked  to  the  say- 
ing, "  Beneath  my  cloak  there  is  naught  else  than 
God."  It  is  worth  noticing  that  certain  other  of  his 
sayings  show  that,  even  in  his  time,  there  were  Sufi 
saints  who  boasted  that  they  had  reached  such  per- 
fection and  such  miraculous  powers  that  the  ordinary 
moral  and  ceremonial  law  no  longer  applied  to  them. 
The  antinomianism  which  haunted  the  later  Sufiism 
and  darwishdom  had  already  appeared. 

But  the  greatest  name  of  all  among  these  early 
pantheists  was  that  of  al-Hallaj  (the  cotton  carder), 
a  pupil  of  al-Junayd,  who  was  put  to  death  with  great 
cruelty  in  309.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  reach  any 
certain  conclusion  as  to  his  real  views  and  aims.  In 
spite  of  what  seem  to  be  utterances  of  the  crassest 
pantheism,  such  as,  "I  am  the  Truth,"  there  have 
not  been  wanting  many  in  later  Islam  who  have 
reverenced  his  memory  as  that  of  a  saint  and  martyr. 
To  Sufis  and  darwishes  of  his  time  and  to  this  day 
he  has  been  and  is  a  patron  saint.  In  his  life  and 
death  he  represents  for  them  the  spirit  of  revolt  against 
dogmatic  scholasticism  and  formalism.  Further,  even 
such  a  great  doctor  of  the  Muslim  Church  as  al-Ghazzali 
defended  him  and,  though  lamenting  some  iu  cautious 
phrases,  upheld  his  orthodoxy.     At  his  trial  itself 


184  THEOLOGY 

before  the  tlieologians  of  Baghdad,  one  of  them  re- 
fused to  sign  the  fativa  deckiring  him  an  unbeliever ; 
he  was  not  clear,  he  said,  as  to  the  case.  And  it  is 
true  that  such  records  as  we  have  of  the  time  suggest 
that  his  condemnation  was  forced  by  the  government 
as  a  matter  of  state  policy.  He  was  a  Persian  of 
Magian  origin,  and  evidently  an  advanced  mystic  of 
the  speculative  type.  He  carried  the  theory  to  its 
legitimate  conclusion,  and  proclaimed  the  result  pub- 
licly. He  dabbled  in  scholastic  theology  ;  had  evi- 
dent Mu'tazilite  leanings;  wrote  on  alchemy  and 
things  esoteric.  But  with  this  mystical  enthusiasm 
there  seem  to  have  united  in  him  other  and  more 
dangerous  traits.  The  stories  which  have  reached 
us  show  him  of  a  character  fond  of  excitement  and 
change,  surrounding  himself  with  devoted  adherents 
and  striving  by  miracle-working  of  a  commonplace 
kind  to  add  to  his  following.  His  popularity  among 
the  people  of  Baghdad  and  their  reverence  for 
him  rose  to  a  perilous  degree.  He  may  have  had 
plans  of  his  own  as  a  Persian  nationalist;  he  may 
have  had  part  in  one  of  the  Shi'ite  conspiracies  ;  he 
may  have  been  nothing  but  a  rather  weak-headed 
devotee,  carried  off  his  feet  by  a  sudden  tide  of  public 
excitement,  the  greatest  trial  and  danger  that  a  saint 
has  to  meet.  But  the  times  were  not  such  then  in 
Baghdad  that  the  government  could  take  any  risks. 
Al-Muqtadir  was  Khalifa  and  in  his  weak  hands  the 
Khalifate  was  slipping  to  ruin.  The  Fatimids  were 
supreme  in  North  Africa ;  the  Qarmatians  held  Syria 
and  Arabia,  and  were  threatening  Baghdad  itself.  In 
eight  years  they  were  to  take  Mecca.     Persia  was 


AL-HALLAJ  185 

seething  with  false  prophets  and  nationalists  of  every 
shade.  Thirteen  years  later  Ibn  ash-Shalmaghani 
was  put  to  death  in  Baghdad  on  similar  grounds  ;  in 
his  case,  Shi'ite  conspiracy  against  the  state  was  still 
more  clearly  involved.  We  can  only  conclude  in  the 
words  of  Ibn  Khallikan  (d.  681),  "  The  history  of  al- 
Hallaj  is  long  to  relate  ;  his  fate  is  Avell  known ;  and 
God  knoweth  all  secret  things."  With  him  Ave  must 
leave,  for  the  present,  consideration  of  the  Sufi  devel- 
opment and  return  to  the  Mu'tazilites  and  to  the 
people  tiring  of  their  dry  subtilties. 


CHAPTER  III 

The  rise  of  orthodox  Icalam;  al-Ash'ari;  decline  of  the  Mu'tazil- 
ites ;  passing  of  heresy  into  unbelief  ;  development  of  scho- 
lastic theology  by  Ash'arites ;  rise  of  Zahirite  kalam ;  Ibn 
Hazm ;  persecution  of  Ash'arites  ;  final  assimilation  of  kalmn. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  the  traditionalist  party  at 
first  refused  to  enter  upon  any  discussion  of  sacred 
things.  Malik  ibn  Anas  used  to  say,  "  God's  istuva 
(settling  Himself  firmly  upon  His  throne)  is  known  ; 
how  it  is  done  is  unknown ;  it  must  be  believed ; 
questions  about  it  are  an  innovation  (bid^ay  But 
such  a  position  could  not  be  held  for  any  length  of 
time.  The  world  cannot  be  cut  in  two  and  half  as- 
signed to  faith  and  half  to  reason.  So,  as  time  went 
on,  there  arose  on  the  orthodox  side  men  who,  little 
by  little,  were  prepared  to  give  a  reason  for  the  faith 
that  was  in  them.  They  thus  came  to  use  kalam  in 
order  to  meet  the  kalam  of  the  Mu'tazilites ;  they 
became  mutakalUins,  and  the  scholastic  theology  of 
Islam  was  founded.  It  is  the  history  of  this  transfer 
of  method  which  we  have  now  to  consider. 

Its  beginnings  are  wrapped  in  a  natural  obscurity. 
It  was  at  first  a  gradual,  unconscious  drift,  and  peo- 
ple did  not  recognize  its  existence.  Afterward,  when 
they  looked  back  upon  it,  the  tendency  of  the  human 
mind  to  ascribe  broad  movements  to  single  men  as- 
serted itself  and  the  whole  was  put  under  the  name 

186 


RISE   OF   OKTHODOX   KALAM  187 

of  al-Asli*ari.  It  is  true  that  with  him,  in  a  sense,  the 
change  suddenly  leaped  to  self-consciousness,  but  it 
had  already  been  long  in  progress.  As  we  have  seen, 
al-Junayd  discussed  the  unity  of  God,  but  it  was  be- 
hind closed  doors.  Ash-Shafi'i  held  that  there  should 
be  a  certain  number  of  men  trained  thus  to  defend 
and  purify  the  faith,  but  that  it  would  be  a  great 
evil  if  their  arguments  should  become  known  to  the 
mass  of  the  people.  Al-Muhasibi,  a  contemporary 
of  Ahmad  ibn  Hanbal,  was  suspected,  and  rightly,  of 
defending  his  faith  with  argument,  and  thereby  in- 
curred Ahmad's  displeasure.  Another  contemporary 
of  Ahmad's,  al-Karabisi  (d.  345),  incurred  the  same 
displeasure,  and  the  list  might  easily  be  extended. 
But  the  most  significant  fact  of  all  is  that  the  move- 
ment came  to  the  surface  and  showed  itself  openly  at 
the  same  time  in  the  most  widely  separated  lands  of 
Islam.  In  Mesopotamia  there  was  al-Ash'ari,  who 
died  after  320 ;  in  Egypt  there  was  at-Tahawi,  who 
died  in  331;  in  Samarqand  there  was  al-Mataridi, 
who  died  in  333.  Of  these  at-Tahawi  is  now  little 
more  than  a  name ;  al-Mataridi's  star  has  paled  be- 
fore that  of  al-Ash'ari ;  al-Ash'ari  has  come  in  popular 
view  to  be  the  solitary  hero  before  whom  the  Mu'taz- 
ilite  system  went  down.  It  will  perhaps  be  sufficient 
if  we  take  his  life  and  experiences  as  our  guide  in 
this  period  of  change  ;  the  others  must  have  followed 
very  much  in  the  same  path. 

He  was  born  at  al-Basra  in  260,  the  year  in  which 
al-Kindi  died  and  Muhammad  al-Muntazar  vanished 
from  the  sight  of  men.  He  came  into  a  world  full  of 
intellectual  ferment ;  Alids  of  different  camps  were 


188  THEOLOGY 

active  in  their  claim  to  be  possessors  of  an  infallible 
Imam  ;  Zaydites  and  Qarmatians  were  in  revolt ;  the 
decree  of  234  that  the  Qur'an  was  uncreated  had  had 
little  effect,  so  far,  in  silencing  the  Mu'tazilites ;  in 
261  the  Sufi  pantheist,  Abu  Yazid,  died.  Al-Ash'ari 
himself  was  of  the  best  blood  of  the  desert  and  of  a 
highly  orthodox  family  which  had  borne  a  distin- 
guished part  in  Muslim  history.  Through  some  ac- 
cident he  came  in  early  youth  into  the  care  of  al- 
Jubba'i,  the  Mu'tazilite,  who,  according  to  one  story, 
had  married  al-Ash'ari's  mother ;  was  brought  up  by 
him  and  remained  a  stanch  Mu'tazilite,  writing  and 
speaking  on  that  side,  till  he  was  forty  years  old. 

Then  a  strange  thing  happened.  One  day  he  mounted 
the  pulpit  of  the  mosque  in  al-Basra  and  cried  aloud, 
"  He  who  knows  me,  knows  me ;  and  he  who  knows 
me  not,  let  him  know  that  I  am  so  and  so,  the  son  of 
so  and  so.  I  have  maintained  the  creation  of  the 
Qur'an  and  that  God  will  not  be  seen  in  the  world  to 
come  with  the  eyes,  and  that  the  creatures  create  their 
actions.  Lo,  I  repent  that  I  have  been  a  Mu'tazilite 
and  turn  to  opposition  to  them."  It  was  a  voice  full 
of  omen.  It  told  that  the  intellectual  supremacy  of 
the  Mu'tazilites  had  publicly  passed  and  that,  here- 
after, they  would  be  met  with  their  own  weapons. 
What  led  to  this  change  of  mind  is  strictly  unknown  ; 
only  legends  have  reached  us.  One,  full  of  psycho- 
logical truth,  runs  that  one  Kamadan,  the  fasting 
month,  when  he  was  worn  with  prayer  and  hunger, 
the  Prophet  appeared  to  him  three  times  in  his  sleej), 
and  commanded  him  to  turn  from  his  vain  halam  and 
seek  certainty  in  the  traditions  and  the  Qur'an.     If 


RETURN   OF   AL-ASH'ARI  189 

he  would  but  give  himself  to  that  study,  God  would 
make  clear  the  difficulties  and  enable  him  to  solve  all 
the  puzzles.  He  did  so,  and  his  mind  seemed  to  bo 
opened ;  the  old  contradictions  and  absurdities  had 
fled,  and  he  cursed  the  Mu'tazilites  and  all  their 
works. 

It  can  easily  be  seen  that  in  some  such  way  as 
this  the  blood  of  the  race  may  have  led  him  back 
to  the  God  of  his  fathers,  the  God  of  the  desert, 
whose  word  must  be  accepted  as  its  own  proof.  The 
gossips  of  the  time  told  strange  tales  of  rich  relatives 
and  family  pressure ;  we  can  leave  these  aside.  When 
he  had  changed  he  was  terribly  in  earnest.  He  met 
his  old  teacher,  al-Jubba'i,  in  public  discussions  again 
and  again  till  the  old  man  withdrew.  One  of  these 
discussions  legend  has  handed  down  in  varying  forms. 
None  of  them  may  be  exactly  true,  but  they  are  sig- 
nificant of  the  change  of  attitude.  He  came  to  al- 
Jubba'i  and  said,  "  Suppose  the  case  of  three  brothers ; 
one  being  God-fearing,  another  godless  and  a  third 
dies  as  a  child.  What  of  them  in  the  world  to  come  ?  " 
Al-Jubba'i  replied,  "  The  first  will  be  rewarded  in 
Paradise  ;  the  second  punished  in  Hell,  and  the  third 
will  be  neither  rewarded  nor  punished."  Al-Ash'ari 
continued,  "But  if  the  third  said,  'Lord,  Thou 
mightest  have  granted  me  life,  and  then  I  would  have 
been  pious  and  entered  Paradise  like  my  brother,' 
what  then  ?  "  Al-Jubba'i  replied,  "  God  would  say, 
*I  knew  that  if  thou  wert  granted  life  thou  wouldst 
be  godless  and  unbelieving  and  enter  Hell.'  "  Then 
al-Ash'ari  drew  his  noose,  "  But  what  if  the  second 
said,  '  Lord,  why  didst  Thou  not  make  me  die  as  a 


190  THEOLOGY 

child?  Then  had  I  escaped  Hell.'"  Al-Jubba'i 
was  silenced,  and  Al-Ash'ari  went  away  in  triumph. 
Three  years  after  his  pupil  had  left  him  the  old  man 
died.  The  tellers  of  this  story  regard  it  as  disproving 
the  Mu'tazilite  doctrine  of  "the  best" — al-aslah — 
namely,  that  God  is  constrained  to  do  that  which  may 
be  best  and  happiest  for  His  creatures.  Orthodox 
Islam,  as  we  have  seen,  holds  that  God  is  under  no 
such  constraint,  and  is  free  to  do  good  or  evil  as  He 
chooses. 

But  the  story  has  also  another  and  somewhat 
broader  significance.  It  is  a  protest  against  the 
religious  rationalism  of  the  Mu'tazilites,  which  held 
that  the  mysteries  of  the  universe  could  be  expressed 
and  met  in  terms  of  human  thought.  In  this  way 
it  represents  the  essence  of  al-Ash'ari's  position,  a 
recoil  from  the  impossible  task  of  raising  a  system 
of  purely  rationalistic  theology  to  reliance  upon  the 
Word  of  God,  and  the  tradition  Qiadith)  and  usage 
{sunna)  of  the  Prophet  and  the  pattern  of  the  early 
church  {salaf). 

The  stories  told  above  represent  the  change  as 
sudden.  According  to  the  evidence  of  his  books 
that  was  not  so.  In  his  return  there  were  two 
stages.  In  the  first  of  these  he  upheld  the  seven 
rational  Qualities  {sifat  aqliyd)  of  God,  Life,  Knowl- 
edge, Power,  Will,  Hearing,  Seeing,  Speech :  but  ex- 
plained away  the  Qur'anic  anthropomorphisms  of 
God's  face,  hands,  feet,  etc.  In  the  second  stage, 
which  fell,  apparently,  after  he  had  moved  to  Bagh- 
dad and  come  under  the  strong  Hanbalite  influences 
there,  he  explained  away  nothing,  but  contented  him- 


SYSTEM   OF   AL-ASH'aR1  191 

self  with  the  position  that  the  anthropomorphisms 
were  to  be  taken,  hila  kayfa  loala  tashbih,  without  ask- 
ing how  and  without  drawing  any  comparison.  The 
first  phrase  is  directed  against  the  Mu'tazilites,  who 
inquired  persistently  into  the  nature  and  possibility 
of  such  things  in  God ;  the  second,  against  the  an- 
thropomorphists  {mushahbihs,  comparers ;  mujassims, 
corporealizers),  mostly  ultra  Hanbalites  and  Kar- 
ramites,  who  said  that  these  things  in  God  were  like 
the  corresponding  things  in  men.  At  all  stages,  how- 
ever, he  was  prepared  to  defend  his  conclusions  and 
assail  those  of  his  adversaries  by  dint  of  argument. 

The  details  of  his  system  will  be  best  understood  by 
reading  his  creed  and  the  creed  of  al-Fudali,  which  is 
essentially  Ash'arite.  Both  are  in  the  Appendix  of 
Translated  Creeds.  Here,  it  is  necessary  to  draw 
attention  to  two,  only,  of  the  obscurer  points.  On 
the  vexed  question,  "  What  is  a  thing  ?  "  he  antici- 
pated Kant.  The  early  theologians,  orthodox  and 
theoretical,  and  those  later  ones  also  who  did  not  fol- 
low him,  regarded,  as  we  have  seen,  existence  {ivujud) 
as  only  one  of  the  qualities  belonging  to  an  existing 
thing  {mawjtid).  It  was  there  all  the  time,  but  it 
lacked  the  quality  of  "  existence  "  ;  then  that  quality 
was  added  to  its  other  qualities  and  it  became  exist- 
ent. But  al-Ash'ari  and  his  followers  held  that  ex- 
istence was  the  "  self  "  (ayn)  of  the  entity  and  not  a 
quality  or  state,  however  personal  or  necessary.  See, 
on  the  whole.  Appendix  of  Creeds. 

On  the  other  vexed  question  of  free-will,  or,  rather, 
as  the  Muslims  chose  to  express  it,  on  the  ability  of 
men  to  produce  actions,  he  took  up  a  mediating  po- 


192  THEOLOGY 

sition.  The  old  orthodox  position  was  absolutely 
fatalistic ;  the  Mu'tazilites,  following  their  principle 
of  Justice,  gave  to  man  an  initiative  power.  Al- 
Ash'ari  struck  a  middle  path.  Man  cannot  create 
anything ;  God  is  the  only  creator.  Nor  does  man's 
power  produce  any  effect  on  his  actions  at  all.  God 
creates  in  His  creature  power  {qudra)  and  choice 
{ikhtiyar).  Then  He  creates  in  him  his  action  cor- 
responding to  the  power  and  choice  thus  created. 
So  the  action  of  the  creature  is  created  by  God  as 
to  initiative  and  as  to  production  ;  but  it  is  acquired 
by  the  creature.  By  acquisition  {hash)  is  meant  that 
it  corresponds  to  the  creature's  power  and  choice, 
previously  created  in  him,  without  his  having  had 
the  slightest  effect  on  the  action.  He  was  only  the 
locus  or  subject  of  the  action.  In  this  way  al-Ash'ari 
is  supposed  to  have  accounted  for  free-will  and 
entailed  responsibility  upon  men.  It  may  be  doubted 
whether  the  second  point  occupied  him  much.  It 
was  open  to  his  God  to  do  good  or  evil  as  He  chose ; 
the  Justice  of  the  Mu'tazilites  was  left  behind.  He 
may  have  intended  only  to  explain  the  consciousness 
of  freedom,  as  some  have  done  more  recently.  The 
closeness  with  which  al-Ash'ari  in  this  comes  to  the 
pre-established  harmony  of  Leibnitz  and  to  the 
Kantian  conception  of  existence  shows  how  high  a 
rank  he  must  take  as  an  original  thinker.  His 
abandoning  of  the  Mu'tazilites  was  due  to  no  mere 
wave  of  sentiment  but  to  a  perception  that  their  spec- 
ulations were  on  too  narrow  a  basis  and  of  a  too  bar- 
ren scholastic  type.  He  died  after  320  with  a  curse 
on  them  and  their  methods  as  his  last  words. 


AL-MATARIDI  193 

A  few  words  only  need  be  given  to  al-Mataridi. 
The  creed  of  an-Nasafi  in  the  Appendix  of  Creeds,  pp. 
308-315  belongs  to  his  school.  He  and  at-Tahawi 
were  followers  of  the  broad-minded  Abu  Hanifa,  who 
was  more  than  suspected  of  Mu'tazilite  and  Murji'ite 
leanings.  Muslim  theologians  usually  reckon  up 
some  thirteen  points  of  difference  between  al-Mata- 
ridi and  al-Ash'ari  and  admit  that  seven  of  these  are 
not  much  more  than  combats  of  words.  Those 
which  occur  in  an-Nasafi's  creed  are  marked  with  a 
star. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  finish  shortly  with  the 
Mu'tazilites.  Their  work,  as  a  constructive  force,  is 
done.  From  this  time  on  there  is  halam  among  the 
orthodox,  and  the  term  mutakallhn  denotes  nothing 
but  a  scholastic  theologian,  whether  of  one  wing  or 
another.  And  so,  like  any  other  organ  which  has  done 
its  part  and  for  the  existence  of  which  there  is  no 
longer  any  object,  they  gradually  and  quietly  dropped 
into  the  background.  They  had  still,  sometimes,  to 
suffer  persecution,  and  for  hundreds  of  years  there 
were  men  who  continued  to  call  themselves  Mu'tazil- 
ites ;  but  their  heresies  came  to  be  heresies  of  the 
schools  and  not  burning  questions  in  the  eyes  of 
the  masses.  We  need  now  draw  attention  to  only  a 
few  incidents  and  figures  in  this  dying  movement. 
The  Muslim  historians  lay  much  stress  on  the  ortho- 
dox zeal  of  the  Khalifa  al-Qadir,  who  reigned  381- 
422,  and  narrate  how  he  persecuted  the  Mu'tazilites, 
Shi'ites  and  other  heretics  and  compelled  them,  under 
oath,  to  conform. 

But  there  are  several  difficulties  in  the  way  of  this 


194  THEOLOGY 

persecution,  which  make  it  probable  that  it  was  more 
nominal  than  otherwise.  Al-Qaclir  was  bitterly  or- 
thodox ;  he  had  written  a  treatise  on  theology  and 
compelled  his  unhappy  courtiers  to  listen  to  a  public 
reading  of  it  every  week.  But  he  enjoyed,  outside 
of  his  palace,  next  to  no  power.  He  was  in  the  con- 
trol of  the  Shi'ite  Buwayhids,  who,  as  we  have  seen, 
ruled  Baghdad  and  the  Khalifate  from  320  to  447. 
These  dubious  persecutions  are  said  to  have  fallen  in 
408  and  420.  Again,  a  Muslim  pilgrim  from  Spain 
visited  Baghdad  about  390  and  has  left  us  a  record 
of  the  state  of  religious  things  there.  He  found  in 
session  what  may  perhaps  best  be  described  as  a 
Parliament  of  Eeligions.  It  seems  to  have  been  a 
free  debate  between  Muslims  of  all  sects,  orthodox 
and  heretical,  Parsees  and  atheists,  Jews  and  Chris- 
tians— unbelievers  of  every  kind.  Each  party  had  a 
spokesman,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  proceedings 
the  rule  was  rehearsed  that  no  one  might  appeal  to 
the  sacred  books  of  his  creed  but  might  only  adduce 
arguments  founded  upon  reason.  The  pious  Spanish 
Muslim  went  to  two  meetings  but  did  not  peril  his 
soul  by  any  further  visits.  In  his  narrative  we  rec- 
ognize the  horror  with  which  the  orthodox  of  Spain 
viewed  such  proceedings — Spain,  Muslim  and  Chris- 
tian, has  always  favored  the  straitest  sect;  but  when 
such  a  thing  Avas  permitted  in  Baghdad,  religious  lib- 
erty there  at  least  must  have  been  tolerably  broad. 
Possibly  it  was  sittings  of  the  IkJnuan  as-safa  upon 
which  this  scandalized  Spaniard  stumbkd.  He  him- 
self speaks  of  them  as  meetings  of  mutakallims. 
But  if  the  mixture  of  Sunnite  and  Shi'ite  authority 


MAHMUD   OF   GHAZNA  195 

in  Baghdad  gave  all  the  miscellaneous  heretics  a 
chance  for  life,  it  was  different  in  the  growing  domin- 
ions of  Mahmud  of  Ghazna.  That  iconoclastic  mon- 
arch had  embraced  the  anthropomorphic  faith  of  the 
Karramites,  the  most  literal-minded  of  all  the  Mus- 
lim sects.  In  consequence,  all  forms  of  Mu'tazilism 
and  all  kinds  of  mutakallims  were  an  abomination 
to  him,  and  it  was  a  very  real  persecution  which  they 
met  at  his  hands.  That  al-Qadir,  his  spiritual  suze- 
rain, urged  him  on  is  very  probable  ;  it  is  also  possi- 
ble that  respect  for  the  growing  power  of  Mahmud 
may  have  protected  al-Qadir  to  some  extent  from  the 
Buwayhids.  In  420  Mahmud  took  from  them  Ispa- 
han and  held  there  a  grand  inquisition  on  Shi'ites  and 
heretics  of  all  kinds. 

To  proceed  with  the  Mu'tazilites ;  when  we  come 
to  al-Ghazzali  and  his  times  we  shall  find  that  they 
have  ceased  to  be  a  crying  danger  to  the  faith. 
Though  their  views  might,  that  doctor  held,  be  er- 
roneous in  some  respects,  they  were  not  to  be  con- 
sidered as  damnable.  Again,  in  538,  there  died  az- 
Zamakhshari,  the  great  grammarian,  who  is  often 
called  the  last  of  the  Mu'tazilites.  He  was  not  that 
by  any  means,  but  his  heresies  were  either  mild  or 
were  regarded  mildly.  A  single  point  will  show  this, 
His  commentary  on  the  Qur'an,  the  KasJishaf,  was  re- 
vised and  expurgated  in  the  orthodox  interest  by 
al-Baydawi  (d.  688)  and  in  that  form  is  now  the 
most  popular  and  respected  of  all  expositions.  The 
Kashshaf  itseli,  in  its  original,  unmodified  form,  has 
been  printed  several  times  at  Cairo.  Again,  Ibn 
Rushd,  the  Aristotelian,  who  died  in  595,  when  he  is 


196  THEOLOGY 

combatiug  the  arguments  of  tlie  mutakallims,  makes 
little  difference  between  the  Mu'tazilites  and  the 
others.  They  are  only,  to  him,  another  variety  of 
scholastic  theologian,  with  a  rather  better  idea,  per- 
haps, of  logic  and  argument.  He  considered,  as  we 
shall  find  later,  all  the  mutakallims  as  sadly  to  seek 
in  such  matters.  Since  then,  and  into  quite  modern 
times,  there  have  been  sporadic  cases  of  theologians 
called  Mu'tazilites  by  themselves  or  others.  Practi- 
cally, they  have  been  scholastics  of  eccentric  views. 
Finally,  the  use  of  this  name  for  themselves  by  the 
present-day  broad  school  Muslims  of  India  is  abso- 
lutely unhistorical  and  highly  misleading. 

AVe  turn  now  to  suggest,  rather  than  to  trace,  some 
of  the  non-theological  consequences  of  the  preceding 

theology. 

Increasingly,  from  this  time  on,  it  is  not  heresy 
which  has  to  be  met  so  much  as  simple  unbelief,  more 
or  less  frank.  It  is  evident  that  the  heretics  of  the 
earlier  period  are  now  dividing  in  two  directions, 
one  part  inclining  toward  milder  forms  of  heresy  and 
the  other  toward  doubt  in  the  largest  sense,  passing 
over  to  Aristotelian  +  neo-Platonic  philosophy,  and 
thence  dividing  into  materialists,  deists,  and  theists. 
Thus  we  have  seen  earlier  the  workings  of  al-Farabi 
and  of  the  Ikhwan  as-safa.  The  teachings  of  the 
latter  pass  on  to  the  Isma'ilians  w^ho  developed  them 
in  the  mountain  fortresses,  the  centres  of  their  power, 
scattered  from  Persia  to  Syria.  These  were  other- 
wise called  Assassins ;  otherwise  Batinites  in  the 
narrower  sense — in  the  broader  that  term  meant  only 
those  who  found  under  the  letter  of  the  Qur'an  a 


AL-BERUNI  ;    IBN    SINA  197 

bidden,  esoteric  meaning;  otherwise  Ta'limites  or 
claimers  of  a  tcHiin^  a  secret  teaching  by  a  divinely 
instructed  Imam,  and  with  them  w^e  shall  have  much 
to  do  later.  It  is  sufficient  here  to  notice  how  the 
peaceful  and  rather  watery  philosophy  of  the  "Sin- 
cere Brethren "  was  transmuted  through  ambition 
and  fanaticism  into  belligerent  politics  at  the  hands 
and  daggers  of  these  fierce  sectaries.  Into  this  period, 
too,  fall  some  well  known  names  of  dubious  and  more 
than  dubious  orthodoxy.  Al-Benini  (d.  440)  even 
at  the  com't  of  Mahmud  of  Ghazna  managed  to  keep 
his  footing  and  his  head.  Yet  it  may  be  doubted  how 
far  he  was  a  Karramite  or  even  a  Muslim.  He  w^as 
certainly  the  first  scientific  student  of  India  and  In- 
dica  and  of  chronology  and  calendars,  a  man  whose 
attainments  and  results  show  that  our  so-called 
modern  methods  are  as  old  as  genius.  On  religion, 
he  maintained  a  prudent  silence,  but  earned  the  favor 
of  Mahmud  by  an  unsparing  exposure  of  the  weak- 
ness in  the  Fatimid  genealogy.  In  this  sketch  he 
has  a  place  as  a  man  of  science  who  Avent  his  own  w^ay 
without  treading  on  the  religious  toes  of  other  people. 
His  contemporary  Ibn  Sina  (d.  428),  for  us  Avi- 
cenna,  w^as  of  a  different  nature,  and  his  lines  w^ere 
cast  in  different  places.  He  was  a  wanderer  through 
the  courts  of  northern  Persia.  The  orthodox  and 
stringent  Mahmud  he  carefully  avoided;  the  Buway- 
hids  and  those  of  their  ilk  took  such  heresies  as  his 
more  easily.  Endowed  wdtli  a  gigantic  memory  and 
an  insatiable  intellectual  appetite,  he  was  the  ency- 
clopaedist of  his  age,  and  his  scientific  work,  and 
especiall}^  that  in  medicine,  went  further  than  any- 


198  THEOLOGY 

thing  else  to  put  the  Muslim  East  and  mediseval 
Europe  in  the  strait  waistcoat  from  which  the  first 
has  not  yet  emerged  and  the  second  only  shook  itself 
free  in  the  seventeenth  century.  He  was  a  student 
of  Aristotle  and  a  mystic,  as  all  Muslim  students  of 
Aristotle  have  been.  How  far  his  mysticism  enabled 
him  to  square  the  Qur'an  with  his  philosophy  is  not 
clear ;  such  men  seldom  said  exactly  what  they  meant 
and  all  that  they  thought.  He  w^as  also  a  diligent 
student  and  reader  of  the  Qur'an  and  faithful  in  his 
public  religious  duties.  Yet  the  Muslim  world  asserts 
that  he  left  behind  him  a  testamentary  tractate  {loas- 
iya)  defending  dissimulation  as  to  the  religion  of  the 
country  in  which  we  might  be  ;  that  it  was  not  wrong 
for  the  philosopher  to  go  through  religious  rites 
which  for  him  had  no  meaning.  He,  too,  is  signifi- 
cant for  his  time,  and,  if  our  interest  were  philosophy, 
would  call  for  lengthened  treatment.  As  it  is,  he 
marks  for  us  the  accomplished  separation  between 
students  of  theology  and  students  of  philosophy. 

An  equally  well  known  and  by  us  much  better  loved 
name  is  that  of  Umar  al-Khayyam,  who  died  later, 
about  515,  but  who  may  fitly  be  grouped  with  Ibn 
Sina.  He,  too,  was  a  hon  vivant,  but  of  a  deeper, 
more  melancholy  strain.  His  wine  meant  more  than 
friendly  cups  ;  it  was  a  way  of  escape  from  the  world 
and  its  burden.  His  science,  too,  Avent  deeper.  He 
was  not  a  gatherer  and  arranger  of  the  wisdom  of  the 
past ;  his  reformed  calendar  is  more  perfect  than  that 
which  we  even  now  use.  His  faith  is  a  riddle  to  us, 
as  it  was  to  his  comrades.  But  it  was  because  he 
had  no  certain  truth  to  proclaim  that  Umar  did  not 


ABTJ-L-ALA   AL-MA*AKRI  199 

speak  out  clearly.  His  last  words  were  almost  those 
of  Kabelais,  "I  go  to  meet  the  great  Perhaps." 
Anecclotage  connects  his  name  with  that  of  al-Ghaz- 
zali.  Neither  had  escaped  the  pall  of  universal 
scepticism  which  must  have  descended  upon  their 
time.  But  al-Ghazzali,  by  God's  grace,  as  he  himself 
reverently  says,  was  enabled  to  escape.  Umar  died 
under  it. 

A  very  different  man  was  Abu-1-xA.la  al-Ma'arri, 
the  blind  poet  and  singer  of  intellectual  freedom. 
In  Arabic  literature  there  is  no  other  voice  like 
his,  clear  and  confident.  He  was  a  man  of  letters ; 
no  philosopher  nor  theologian  nor  scientist,  though 
at  one  time  he  seems  to  have  come  in  contact  with  a 
circle  like  that  of  Ikhwan  as-safa,  perhaps  the  same ; 
and  his  spirit  was  like  that  of  one  of  the  heroic  poets 
of  the  old  desert  life,  whose  hand  was  taught  to  keep 
his  head,  whose  tongue  spared  nothing  from  heaven 
to  earth,  and  who  lived  his  own  life  out  in  his  own 
way,  undaunted.  In  his  darkness  he  nourished  great 
thoughts  and  flung  out  a  sceva  indignatio  on  hypocrisy 
and  subservience  which  reminds  of  Lessing.  But 
Abu-1-Ala  was  a  great  poet,  and  his  scorn  of 
priests  and  coui'tiers  and  their  lies,  his  pity  for  suf- 
fering humanity  and  his  confidence  in  the  light  of 
reason  are  thrown  into  scraps  of  burning,  echoing 
verse  without  their  like  in  Arabic.  He  died  at  the 
town  of  his  birth,  Ma'arrat  an-Nu'man,  in  northern 
Syria,  in  449.  The  problem  is  how  he  was  suffered 
to  live  out  his  long  life  of  eighty-six  years. 

We  can  now  return  to  the  development  of  scholas- 
tic theology  in  the  orthodox  church  at  the  hands  of 


200  THEOLOGY 

the  followers  of  al-Asli'ari.  They  had  to  fight  their 
way  against  many  and  most  differing  opponents.  At 
the  one  extreme  were  the  dwindling  Mu'tazilites, 
passing  slowly  into  comparatively  innocuous  heretics, 
and  the  growing  party  of  unbelievers,  philosophical 
and  otherwise,  open  and  secret.  At  the  other  ex- 
treme was  the  mob  of  Hanbalites,  belonging  to  the 
only  legal  school  which  laid  theological  burdens  on 
its  adherents.  The  theologians,  in  this  case,  cer- 
tainly varied  as  to  the  weight  of  their  own  anathemas 
against  all  kalam,  but  were  at  one  in  that  they  carried 
the  bulk  of  the  multitude  with  them  and  could  en- 
force their  conclusions  with  the  cudgels  of  rioters. 
In  the  midst  were  the  rival  orthodox  {pace  the  Han- 
balites) developers  of  kalam,  among  whom  the  Ma- 
taridites  probably  held  the  most  important  place. 
Thus,  the  Ash'arite  school  was  the  nursling  as  well  as 
the  child  of  controversy. 

It  was,  then,  fitting  that  the  name  joined,  at  least 
in  tradition,  with  the  final  form  of  that  system,  should 
be  that  of  a  controversialist.  But  this  man,  Abu 
Bakr  al-Baqilani  tlie  Qadi,  was  more  than  a  mere  con- 
troversialist. It  is  his  glory  to  have  contributed  most 
important  elements  to  and  put  into  fixed  form  what 
is,  perhaps,  the  most  fantastic  and  daring  meta- 
physical scheme,  and  almost  certainly  the  most  thor- 
ough theological  scheme,  ever  thought  out.  On  the 
one  hand,  the  Lucretian  atoms  raining  down  through 
the  empty  void,  the  self-developing  monads  of  Leib- 
nitz, pre-established  harmony  and  all,  the  Kantian 
"things  in  themselves"  are  lame  and  impotent  in 
their  consistency  beside  the  parallel  Ash'arite  doc- 


ash'arite  metaphysics  201 

trines ;  and,  on  the  other,  not  even  the  rigors  of  Cal- 
vin, as  developed  in  the  Dutch  confessions,  can  com- 
pete with  the  unflinching  exactitude  of  the  Muslim 
conclusions. 

First,  as  to  ontology.  The  object  of  the  Ash'arites 
was  that  of  Kant,  to  fix  the  relation  of  knowledge  to 
the  thing  in  itself.  Thus,  al-Baqilani  defined  knowl- 
edge {ihn)  as  cognition  {ina'rifa)  of  a  thing  as  it  is  in 
itself.  But  in  reaching  that  ''thing  in  itself"  they 
were  much  more  thorough  than  Kant.  Only  two  of 
the  Aristotelian  categories  survived  their  attack,  sub- 
stance and  quality.  The  others,  quantity,  place,  time 
and  the  rest,  were  only  relationships  {i'tibars)  exist- 
ing subjectively  in  the  mind  of  the  knower,  and  not 
things.  But  a  relationship,  they  argued,  if  real,  must 
exist  in  something,  and  a  quality  cannot  exist  in 
another  quality,  only  in  a  substance.  Yet  it  could 
not  exist  in  either  of  the  two  things  which  it  brought 
together ;  for  example,  in  the  cause  or  the  effect.  It 
must  be  in  a  third  thing.  But  to  bring  this  third 
thing  and  the  first  two  together,  other  relationships 
would  be  needed  and  other  things  for  these  relation- 
ships to  exist  in.  Thus  we  would  be  led  back  in  an 
infinite  sequence,  and  they  had  taken  over  from  Aris- 
totle the  position  that  such  an  infinite  series  backward 
[tasalsal)  is  inadmissible.  Relationships,  then,  had 
no  real  existence  but  were  mere  phantoms,  subjective 
nonentities.  Further,  the  Aristotelian  view  of  matter 
was  now  impossible  for  them.  All  the  categories 
had  gone  except  substance  and  quality ;  and  among 
them,  passion.  Matter,  then,  could  not  have  the  pos- 
sibility of  suffering  the  impress  of  form.     A  possibil- 


202  THEOLOaY 

it  J  is  neither  an  entity  nor  a  non-entity,  but  a  sub- 
jectivity purely.  But  with  the  suffering  matter,  the 
active  form  and  all  causes  must  also  go.  They,  too, 
are  mere  subjectivities.  Again,  qualities,  for  these 
thinkers,  became  mere  accidents.  The  fleeting  char- 
acter of  appearances  drove  them  to  the  conclusion 
that  there  was  no  such  thing  as  a  quality  planted  in 
the  nature  of  a  thing  ;  that  the  idea  *'  nature  "  did  not 
exist.  Then  this  drove  them  further.  Substances  ex- 
ist only  with  qualities,  i.e.,  accidents.  These  quali- 
ties may  be  positive  or  they  may  be  negative ;  the 
ascription  to  things  of  negative  qualities  is  one  of 
their  most  fruitful  conceptions.  When,  then,  the 
qualities  fall  out  of  existence,  the  substances  them- 
selves must  also  cease  to  exist.  Substance  as  well  as 
quality  is  fleeting,  has  only  a  moment's  duration. 

But  when  they  rejected  the  Aristotelian  view  of 
matter  as  the  possibility  of  receiving  form,  their  path 
of  necessity  led  them  straight  to  the  atomists.  So 
atomists  they  became,  and,  as  always,  after  their  own 
fashion.  Their  atoms  are  not  of  sp  ice  only,  but  also 
of  time.  The  basis  of  all  the  manifestation,  mental 
and  physical,  of  the  world  in  place  and  time,  is  a 
multitude  of  monads.  Each  has  certain  qualities  but 
has  extension  neither  in  space  nor  time.  They  have 
simply  position,  not  bulk,  and  do  not  touch  one 
another.  Between  them  is  absolute  void.  Similarly 
as  to  time.  The  time-atoms,  if  the  expression  may 
be  permitted,  are  equally  unextended  and  have  also 
absolute  void — of  time — between  them.  Just  as 
space  is  only  in  a  series  of  atoms,  so  time  is  only  in 
a  succession  of  untouching  moments  and  leaps  across 


ash'arite  theology  203 

the  void  from  one  to  the  other  with  the  jerk  of  the 
hand  of  a  clock.  Time,  in  this  view,  is  in  grains  and 
can  exist  only  iu  connection  with  change.  The  mon- 
ads differ  from  those  of  Leibnitz  in  having  no  nature 
in  themselves,  no  possibility  of  development  along 
certain  lines.  The  Muslim  monads  are,  and  again 
are  not,  all  change  and  action  in  the  world  are  pro- 
duced by  their  entering  into  existence  and  dropping 
out  again,  not  by  any  change  in  themselves. 

But  this  most  simple  view  of  the  world  left  its 
holders  in  precisely  the  same  difficulty,  only  in  a  far 
higher  degree,  as  that  of  Leibnitz.  He  was  com- 
pelled to  fall  back  on  a  pre-established  harmony  to 
bring  his  monads  into  orderly  relations  with  one 
another;  the  Muslim  theologians,  on  their  side,  fell 
back  upon  God  and  found  in  His  will  the  ground  of 
all  things. 

We  here  pass  from  their  ontology  to  their  theology, 
and  as  they  were  thorough-going  metaphysicians,  so 
now  they  are  thorough-going  theologians.  Being 
was  all  in  the  one  case  ;  now  it  is  God  that  is  all.  In 
truth,  their  philosophy  is  in  its  essence  a  scepticism 
which  destroys  the  possibility  of  a  philosophy  in 
order  to  drive  men  back  to  God  and  His  revelations 
and  compel  them  to  see  in  Him  the  one  grand  fact 
of  the  universe.  So,  when  a  darwish  shouts  in  his 
ecstasy,  ^^ Iluiva-l-haqq,''  he  does  not  mean,  "He  is  the 
Truth,"  in  our  Western  sense  of  Verity,  or  our  New 
Testament  sense  of  "  The  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the 
Life,"  but  simply,  "  He  is  the  Fact " — the  one  Ke- 
ality. 

To  return :    from  their  ontology  they  derived  an 


204  THEOLOGY 

argument  for  the  necessity  of  a  God.  That  their 
monads  came  so  and  not  otherwise  must  have  a  cause  ; 
without  it  there  could  be  no  harmony  or  connec- 
tion between  them.  And  this  cause  must  be  one 
wdth  no  cause  behind  it ;  otherwise  we  would  have 
the  endless  chain.  This  cause,  then,  they  found  in 
the  absolutely  free  will  of  God,  working  without  any 
matter  beside  it  and  unaffected  by  any  laws  or  neces- 
sities. It  creates  and  annihilates  the  atoms  and  their 
qualities  and,  by  that  means,  brings  to  pass  all  the 
motion  and  change  of  the  world.  These,  in  our  sense, 
do  not  exist.  When  a  thing  seems  to  us  to  be  moved, 
that  really  means  that  God  has  annihilated — or  per- 
mitted to  drop  out  of  existence,  by  not  continuing  to 
uphold,  as  another  view  held — the  atoms  making  up 
that  thing  in  its  original  position,  and  has  created 
them  again  and  again  along  the  line  over  which  it 
moves.  Similarly  of  what  we  regard  as  cause  and 
effect.  A  man  writes  with  a  pen  and  a  piece  of  paper. 
God  creates  in  his  mind  the  will  to  write  ;  at  the  same 
moment  he  gives  him  the  power  to  write  and  brings 
about  the  apparent  motion  of  the  hand,  of  the  pen 
and  the  appearance  on  the  paper.  No  one  of  these 
is  the  cause  of  the  other.  God  has  brought  about  by 
creation  and  annihilation  of  atoms  the  requisite  com- 
bination to  produce  these  aopearances.  Thus  we  see 
that  free-will  for  the  Muslim  scholastics  is  simply  the 
presence,  in  the  mind  of  the  man,  of  this  choice  cre- 
ated there  by  God.  This  may  not  seem  to  us  to  be 
very  real,  but  it  has,  certainly,  as  much  reality  as 
anything  else  in  their  world.  Further,  it  will  be  ob- 
served how  completely  this  annihilates  the  machinery 


ETHICAL   CONSEQUENCES  205 

of  tlie  universe.  Tliere  is  no  such  tiling  as  law,  and 
the  world  is  sustained  by  a  constant,  ever-repeated 
miracle.  Miracles  and  what  we  regard  as  the  ordi- 
nary operations  of  nature  are  on  the  same  level. 
The  world  and  the  things  in  it  could  have  been  quite 
different.  The  only  limitation  upon  God  is  that  He 
cannot  produce  a  contradiction.  A  thing  cannot  be 
and  not  be  at  the  same  time.  There  is  no  such  thing 
as  a  secondary  cause ;  when  there  is  the  appearance 
of  such,  it  is  only  illusional.  God  is  producing  it  as 
well  as  the  ultimate  appearance  of  effect.  There  is 
no  nature  belonging  to  things.  Fire  does  not  burn 
and  a  knife  does  not  cut.  God  creates  in  a  substance 
a  being  burned  when  the  fire  touches  it  and  a  being 
cut  when  the  knife  approaches  it. 

In  this  scheme  there  are  certainly  grave  difficul- 
ties, philosophical  and  ethical.  It  establishes  a  rela- 
tionship between  God  and  the  atoms ;  but  we  have 
already  seen  that  relationships  are  subjective  illu- 
sions. That,  however,  was  in  the  case  of  the  things 
of  the  world,  perceived  by  the  senses — contingent 
being,  as  they  would  put  it.  It  does  not  hold  of 
necessary  being.  God  possesses  a  quality  called 
Difference  from  originated  things  {al-mukhalafa  lil- 
hawadith).  He  is  not  a  natural  cause,  but  a  free 
cause ;  and  the  existence  of  a  free  cause  they  were 
compelled  by  their  principles  to  admit.  The  ethical 
difficulty  is  perhaps  greater.  If  there  is  no  order  of 
nature  and  no  certainty,  or  nexus,  as  to  causes  and 
effects;  if  there  is  no  regular  development  in  the 
life,  mental,  moral,  and  physical  of  a  man — only  a 
series  of  isolated  moments ;  how  can  there  be  any 


206  THEOLOGY 

responsibility,  any  moral  claim  or  duty  ?  This  diffi- 
culty seems  to  have  been  recognized  more  clearly 
than  the  philosophical  one.  It  was  met  formally  by 
the  assertion  of  a  certain  order  and  regularity  in  the 
will  of  God.  He  sees  to  it  that  a  man's  life  is  a 
unity,  and,  for  details,  that  the  will  to  eat  and  the 
action  always  coincide.  But  such  an  answer  must 
have  been  felt  to  be  inadequate  and  to  involve 
grave  moral  dangers  for  the  common  mind.  There- 
fore, as  we  have  seen,  the  study  of  kalam  was  hedged 
about  with  difficulties  and  restrictions.  Theologians 
recognized  its  trap-falls  and  doubts,  even  for  them- 
selves, and  lamented  that  they  were  compelled  by 
their  profession  to  study  it.  The  public  discussion 
of  its  questions  was  regarded  as  a  breach  of  profes- 
sional etiquette.  Theologians  and  philosophers  alike 
strove  to  keep  these  deeper  mysteries  hidden  from 
the  multitude.  The  gap  between  the  highly  edu- 
cated and  the  great  mass — that  fundamental  error  and 
greatest  danger  in  Muslim  society — comes  here  again 
to  view.  Further,  even  among  theologians,  there 
was  some  difference  in  degree  of  insight,  and  books 
and  phrases  could  be  read  by  different  men  in  very 
different  waj^s.  To  one,  they  would  suggest  ordinary, 
Qur'anic  doctrines  ;  another  would  see  under  and  be- 
hind them  a  trail  of  metaphysical  consequences 
bristling  with  blasphemous  possibilities.  Thus, 
Muslim  science  has  been  always  of  the  school ;  it  has 
never  learned  the  vitalizing  and  disinfecting  value 
of  the  fresh  air  of  the  market-place.  This  applies 
to  philosophers  even  more  than  to  theologians. 
The  crowning  accusation  which  Ibn  Rushd,  the  great 


SPEEAD   OF   ASH'ARISM  207 

Aristotelian  commentator,  brought  against  al-Gliaz- 
zali  was  that  lie  discussed  such  subtilties  in  popular 
books. 

This,  then,  was  the  system  which  seems  to  have 
reached  tolerably  complete  form  at  the  hands  of  al- 
Baqilani,  who  died  in  403.  But  with  the  comple- 
tion of  the  system  there  went  by  no  means  its  uni- 
versal or  even  wide-spread  acceptance  in  the  Mus- 
lim world.  That  of  al-Mataridi  held  its  own  for  long, 
and,  even  yet,  the  Mataridite  creed  of  an-Nasafi  is 
used  largely  in  the  Turkish  schools.  In  the  fifth 
century  it  was  considered  remarkable  that  Abu  Dharr 
(d.  434),  a  theologian  of  Herat,  should  be  an  Ash- 
'arite  rather  than,  apparently,  a  Mataridite.  It  was 
not  till  al-Ghazzali  (d.  505)  that  the  Ash'arite  sys- 
tem came  to  the  orthodox  hegemony  in  the  East,  and 
it  was  only  as  the  result  of  the  work  of  Ibn  Tumart, 
the  Mahdi  of  the  Muwahhids  (d.  524),  that  it  con- 
quered the  West.  For  long  its  path  was  darkened  by 
suspicion  and  persecution.  This  came  almost  en- 
tirely from  the  Hanbalites.  The  Mu'tazilites  had  no 
force  behind  them,  and  while  the  views  of  deists  and 
materialists  were  steadily  making  way  in  secret,  their 
public  efforts  appeared  only  in  very  occasional  dis- 
putes between  theologians  and  philosophers.  As  we 
have  seen,  Muslim  philosophy  has  always  practised 
an  economy  of  teaching. 

The  Hanbalite  crisis  seems  to  have  come  to  a  head 
toward  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Tughril  Beg,  the  first 
Great  Saljuq.  In  429,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Saljuqs 
had  taken  Merv  o,nd  Samarqand,  and  in  447  Tughril 
Beg  had  entered  Baghdad  and  freed  the  Khalifa  from 


208  THEOLOGY 

the  Shi'ite  domination  of  the  Buwayhids  who  had  so 
long  enforced  toleration.  It  was  natural  that  he,  a 
theologically  unschooled  Turk,  should  be  captured 
by  the  simplicity  and  concreteness  of  the  Hanbalite 
doctrines. 

Added  to  this  political  factor  there  was  a  theologi- 
cal movement  at  work  which  was  deeply  hostile  to 
the  Ash'arites  as  they  had  developed.  An  important 
point  in  the  method  of  al-Ash'ari  himself,  and,  after 
him,  of  his  followers,  was  to  put  forth  a  creed,  ex- 
pressed in  the  old-fashioned  terms  and  containing  the 
old-fashioned  doctrines  as  nearly  as  was  at  all  possible, 
and  to  accompany  it  with  a  spiritualizing  interpreta- 
tion which  was,  naturally,  accessible  to  the  professional 
student  only.  Accordingly  what  had  at  first  seemed  a 
weapon  against  the  Mu'tazilites  came  to  be  viewed  with 
more  and  more  suspicion  by  the  holders  to  the  old, 
unquestioning  orthodoxy.  The  dut}^  also  of  religious 
investigation  and  speculation  {iiiazr)  came  to  have 
more  and  more  stress  laid  upon  it.  The  hila  hayfa 
dropped  into  the  background.  A  Muslim  must  have  a 
reason  for  the  faith  that  was  in  him,  they  said  ;  other- 
wise, he  was  no  true  Muslim,  was  in  fact  an  unbeliever. 
Of  course,  they  limited  carefully  the  extent  to  which 
he  should  go.  For  the  ordinary  man  a  series  of  very 
simple  proofs  would  be  prepared  ;  the  student,  on 
the  other  hand,  when  carefully  led,  could  work  his 
way  through  the  system  sketched  above.  All  this, 
naturally,  was  anathema  to  the  party  of  tradition. 

It  is  significant  that  at  this  time  the  Zahirite  school 
of  law  ifiqli)  developed  into  a  school  of  kalam  and 
applied  its  literal  principles  unflinchingly  to  its  new 


IBN   HAZM  209 

victim.  Tlie  leader  in  this  was  Ibn  Hazm,  a  theo- 
logian of  Spain.  He  died  in  456,  after  a  stormy 
life  filled  with  controversy.  The  remorseless  sting  of 
his  vituperative  style  coupled  him,  in  popular  prov- 
erb, with  al-Hajjaj,  the  blood-thirsty  lieutenant  of 
the  Umayyads  in  al-Iraq.  "  The  sword  of  al-Hajjaj 
and  the  tongue  of  Ibn  Hazm,"  they  said.  But  for 
all  his  violence  of  language  and  real  weight  of  char- 
acter and  brain,  he  made  little  way  for  his  views  in 
his  lifetime.  It  was  almost  one  hundred  years  after 
his  death  before  they  came  into  any  prominence. 
The  theologians  and  lawyers  around  him  in  the  West 
were  devoted  to  the  study  of  Jiqlt  in  the  narrowest 
and  most  technical  sense.  They  labored  over  the 
systems  and  treatises  of  their  predecessors  and 
neglected  the  great  original  sources  of  the  Qur'an 
and  the  traditions.  The  immediate  study  of  tradi- 
tion {hadWi)  had  died  out.  Ibn  Hazm,  on  the  other 
hand,  went  straight  back  to  hadith.  Taqlid  he  abso- 
lutely rejected,  each  man  must  draw  from  the  sacred 
texts  his  own  views.  So  the  whole  system  of  the 
canon  lawyers  came  down  with  a  crash  and  they,  nat- 
urally, did  not  like  it.  Analogy  {qiycis),  their  princi- 
pal instrument,  he  swept  away.  It  had  no  place 
either  in  law  or  theology.  Even  on  the  principle  of 
agreement  {ijma)  he  threw  a  shadow  of  doubt. 

But  it  was  in  theology  rather  than  in  law  that  Ibn 
Hazm's  originality  lay.  Strictly,  his  Zahirite  j)rin- 
ciples  when  applied  there  should  have  led  him  to 
anthropomorphism  (tajsim).  The  literal  meaning  of 
the  Qur'an,  as  we  have  seen,  assigns  to  God  hands  and 
feet,  sitting  on  and  descending  from  His  throne.    But 


210  THEOLOGY 

to  Ibn  Hazm,  anthropomorpliism  was  an  abomination 
only  less  than  the  speculative  arguments  with  which 
the  Ash'arites  tried  to  avoid  it.  His  own  method  was 
purely  grammatical  and  lexicographical.  He  hunted 
in  his  dictionary  until  he  found  some  other  meaning 
for  "hand"  or  "foot,"  or  whatever  the  stumbling- 
block  might  be. 

But  the  most  original  point  in  his  system  is  his 
doctrine  of  the  names  of  God,  and  his  basing  of 
that  doctrine  upon  God's  qualities.  The  Ash'arites, 
he  contended  with  justice,  had  been  guilty  of  a  grave 
inconsistency  in  saying  that  God  was  different  in 
nature,  qualities,  and  actions  from  all  created  things, 
and  yet  that  the  human  qualities  could  be  predicated 
of  God,  and  that  men  could  reason  about  God's 
nature.  He  accepted  the  doctrine  of  God's  dif- 
ference {mukhalafa)  on  highly  logical,  but,  for  us, 
rather  startling  grounds.  The  Qur'an  applies  to 
Him  the  words,  "  The  Most  Merciful  of  those  that 
show  mercy,"  but  God,  evidently,  is  not  merciful. 
He  tortures  children  with  all  manner  of  painful  dis- 
eases, with  hunger  and  terror.  Mercy,  in  our  human 
sense,  which  is  high  praise  applied  to  a  man,  cannot 
be  predicated  of  God.  What  then  does  the  Qur'an 
mean  by  those  words  ?  Simply  that  they — arliamu-r- 
raJiimin — are  one  of  God's  names,  applied  to  Him  by 
Himself  and  that  we  have  no  right  to  take  them  as 
descriptive  of  a  quality,  mercy,  and  to  use  them  to 
throw  light  on  God's  nature.  They  form  one  of 
the  Ninety-nine  Most  Beautiful  Names  {al-asma  al- 
liusna)  of  which  the  Prophet  has  spoken  in  a  tradi- 
tion.    Similarly,  we  may  call  God  the  Living  One 


IBN   HAZM  211 

{al  hayy),  because  He  has  given  us  that  as  one  of 
His  names,  not  because  of  any  reasoning  on  our  part. 
Do  we  not  say  that  His  life  is  different  from  that  of 
all  other  living  beings  ?  These  names  then,  are  limited 
to  ninety-nine  and  no  more  should  be  formed,  however 
full  of  praise  such  might  be  for  God,  or  however  di- 
rectly based  on  His  actions.  He  has  called  Himself 
al-Wahib,  the  Giver,  and  so  we  may  use  that  term 
of  Him.  But  He  has  not  called  Himself  al-Wahhab 
the  Bountiful  Giver,  so  we  may  not  use  that  term  of 
Him,  though  it  is  one  of  praise.  Of  course,  you  may 
describe  His  action  and  say  that  He  is  the  guider 
of  His  saints.  But  you  must  not  make  from  that  a 
name,  and  call  Him  simply  the  Guider.  Further,  if 
we  regard  these  names  as  expressing  qualities  in 
God,  we  involve  multiplicity  in  God's  nature ;  there 
is  the  quality  and  the  thing  qualified.  Here  we  are 
back  at  the  old  Mu'tazilite  difliculty  and  it  is  intelli- 
gible that  Ibn  Hazm  dealt  more  gently  with  the  Mu'- 
tazilites  than  with  the  Ash'arites.  The  one  party  were 
Muslims  and  sinned  in  ignorance — invincible  igno- 
rance, a  Boman  Catholic  would  call  it;  the  others 
were  unbelievers.  They  had  turned  wilfully  from 
the  way.  The  Mu'tazilites  had  tried  to  limit  the 
qualities  as  much  as  possible.  At  the  best  they  had 
said  that  they  ivere  God's  essence  and  not  in  His  es- 
sence. Al-Ash'ari  and  his  school  had  fairly  revelled 
in  qualities  and  had  mapped  out  the  nature  of  God 
with  the  detail — and  daring — of  a  phrenological  chart. 
Naturally,  Ibn  Hazm  made  his  ethical  basis  the 
will  of  God  only.  God  has  willed  that  this  should 
be  a  sin  and  that  a  good  deed.     Lying,  he  concedes, 


212  THEOLOGY 

is  always  saying  wliat  does  not  agree  with  the  truth. 
But,  still,  God  may  pronounce  that  one  lie  is  a  sin, 
and  one  not.  Muslim  ethics,  it  is  true,  have  never 
branded  lying  as  sinful  in  itself. 
^  For  the  Shi'ites  and  their  doctrine  of  an  infallible 
Imam,  Ibn  Hazm  cannot  find  strong  enough  expres- 
sions of  contempt. 

In  Ibn  Hazm's  time,  and  he  praises  God  for  it, 
there  were  but  few  Ash'arites  in  the  West.  Theology 
generally  did  not  find  many  students.  So  things 
went  on  till  long  after  his  death.  To  this  fiery  con- 
troversialist the  worst  blow  of  all  would  have  been  if 
he  could  have  known  that  the  men  Avho  were  at  last 
to  bring  his  system,  in  part  and  for  a  time,  into 
public  acceptance  and  repute,  were  also  to  complete 
the  conquest  of  Islam  for  the  Ash'arite  school.  That 
was  still  far  in  the  future,  and  we  must  return  to  the 
persecution. 

The  accounts  of  the  persecution  which  set  in  are 
singularly  conflicting.  Some  assign  it  to  Hanbalite 
influence ;  others  tell  of  a  Mu'tazilite  wazir  of  Tughril 
Beg,  That  the  traditionalist  party  was  the  main 
force  in  it  seems  certain.  In  all  probability,  how- 
ever, all  the  other  anti-Ash'arite  sects,  from  the 
Mu'tazilites  on,  took  their  own  parts.  The  Ash'arite 
party  represented  a  via  media  and  would  be  set  upon 
with  zest  by  all  the  extremes.  They  were  solemnly 
cursed  from  the  pulpits  and,  what  added  peculiar 
insult  to  it,  the  Kafidites,  an  extreme  Kharijite  sect, 
were  joined  in  the  same  anathema.  Al-Juwayni,  the 
greatest  theologian  of  the  time,  fled  to  the  Hijaz 
and  gained  the  title  of  Imam  of  the  two  Harams 


TRIUMPH   OF   ASH'ARISM  213 

{Imam  al-Haramayn),  by  living  for  four  years  be- 
tween Mecca  and  al-Maclina.  Al-Qusliayri,  the  author 
of  a  celebrated  treatise  on  Sufiism,  was  thrown  into 
prison.  The  Ash'arite  doctors  generally  were  scat- 
tered to  the  winds.  Only  with  the  death  of  Tughril 
Beg  in  455  did  the  cloud  pass.  His  successor,  Alp- 
Arslan,  and  especially  the  great  wazir,  Nizam  al-Mulk, 
favored  the  Ash'arites.  In  459  the  latter  founded 
the  Nizamite  Academy  at  Baghdad  to  be  a  defence  of 
Ash'arite  doctrines.  This  may  fairly  be  regarded  as 
the  turning-point  of  the  whole  controversy.  The 
Hanbalite  mob  of  Baghdad  still  continued  to  make 
itself  felt,  but  its  excesses  w^ere  promptly  suppressed. 
In  510  ash-Shahrastani  was  well  received  there  by 
the  people,  and  in  516  the  Khalifa  himself  attended 
Ash'arite  lectures. 

It  is  needless  to  spend  more  time  over  the  other 
theologians  who  were  links  in  the  chain  between  al- 
Ash'ari  and  the  Imam  al-Haramayn.  Their  views 
w^avered,  this  w^ay  and  that,  only  the  rationalizing 
tendency  became  stronger  and  stronger.  There  was 
danger  that  the  orthodox  system  w^ould  fossilize  and 
lose  touch  with  life  as  that  of  the  Mu'tazilites  had 
done.  It  is  true  that  Sufiism  still  held  its  ground. 
All  theologians  practically  were  touched  by  it  in  its 
simpler  form ;  and  the  cause  of  the  higher  Sufiism 
of  ecstasy,  wonders  by  saints  {karamat)  and  commun- 
ion of  the  individual  soul  with  God  had  been  elo- 
quently and  effectively  urged  by  al-Qushayri  (d.  465) 
in  his  Risala.  But  in  spite  of  the  labors  of  so  many 
men  of  high  ability,  the  religious  outlook  was  grow- 
ing  ever   darker.     Keen   observers   recognized   that 


214  THEOLOGY 

some  change  was  bound  to  come.  That  it  might  be 
an  inflowing  of  new  life  by  a  new  al-Ash'ari  was  their 
prayer.  It  is  more  than  dubious  whether  even  the 
keenest  mind  of  the  time  coukl  have  recognized  what 
form  the  new  life  must  take.  They  had  not  the 
perspective  and  could  only  feel  a  vague  need.  But 
from  what  has  gone  before  it  will  be  plain  that  Islam 
had  again  to  assimilate  to  itself  something  from  with- 
out or  perish.  Such  had  been  its  manner  of  progress 
up  till  now.  New  opinions  had  arisen  ;  had  become 
heresies ;  conflict  had  followed ;  part  of  the  new 
thought  had  been  absorbed  into  the  orthodox  church ; 
part  had  been  rejected ;  through  it  all  the  life  of  the 
church  had  gone  on  in  fuller  and  richer  measure, 
being  always,  in  spite  of  everything,  the  main  stream ; 
the  heresy  itself  had  slowly  dwindled  out  of  sight. 
So  it  had  been  with  Murji'ism ;  so  with  Mu'tazilism. 
With  the  orthodox,  tradition  {naql)  still  stood  fast, 
but  reason  {aql)  had  taken  a  place  beside  ifc.  Kalam, 
in  spite  of  Hanbalite  clamors,  had  become  fairly  a 
part  of  their  system.  What  was  to  be  the  new  ele- 
ment, and  who  was  to  be  its  champion  ? 


CHAPTEE  IV 

Al-Ghazzali,  his  life,  times,  and  work;  Sufiism   formally  accepted 

into  Islam. 

With  tlie  time  came  the  man.  He  was  al-Gliazzali, 
the  greatest,  certainly  the  most  sympathetic  figui-e  in 
the  history  of  Islam,  and  the  only  teacher  of  the  after 
generations  ever  put  by  a  Muslim  on  a  level  with  the 
four  great  Imams.  The  equal  of  Augustine  in  philo- 
sophical and  theological  importance,  by  his  side  the 
Aristotelian  philosophers  of  Islam,  Ibn  Eushd  and 
all  the  rest,  seem  beggarly  compilers  and  scholiasts. 
Only  al-Farabi,  and  that  in  virtue  of  his  mysticism, 
approaches  him.  In  his  own  person  he  took  up  the 
life  of  his  time  on  all  its  sides  and  with  it  all  its  prob- 
lems. He  lived  through  them  all  and  drew  his  the- 
ology from  his  experience.  Systems  and  classifica- 
tions, words  and  arguments  about  words,  he  swept 
away ;  the  facts  of  life  as  he  had  known  them  in  his 
own  soul  he  grasped.  When  his  work  was  done  the 
revelation  of  the  mystic  (hashf)  was  not  only  a  full 
part  but  the  basal  part  in  the  structure  of  Muslim 
theology.  That  basis,  in  spite,  or  rather  on  account 
of  the  work  of  the  mutakallims  had  previously  been 
lacking.  Such  a  scepticism  as  their  atomic  system 
had  practically  amounted  to,  could  disprove  much  but 
could  prove  little.  If  all  the  catagories  but  substance 
and  quality  are  mere  subjectivities,  existing  in  the 

215 


216  THEOLOGY 

mind  only,  what  can  we  know  of  things  ?  An  ultra- 
rational  basis  had  to  be  found  and  it  was  found  in 
the  ecstasy  of  the  Sufis.  But  al-Ghazzali  brought 
another  element  into  fuller  and  more  effective  work- 
ing. With  him  passes  away  the  old-fashioned  kalam, 
a  thing  of  shreds  and  patches,  scraps  of  metaphysics 
and  logic  snatched  up  for  a  moment  of  need,  without 
grasp  of  the  full  sweep  of  philosophy,  and  incapable, 
in  the  long  run,  of  meeting  it.  Even  its  atomic  sys- 
tem is  a  philosophy  of  amateurs,  with  all  their  fan- 
tastic one-sidedness,  their  vigor  and  rigor.  But  al- 
Ghazzali  was  no  amateur.  His  knowledge  and  grasp 
of  the  problems  and  objects  of  philosophy  were  truer 
and  more  vital  than  in  any  other  Muslim  up  to  his 
time — perhai^s  after  it,  too.  Islam  has  not  fully  un- 
derstood him  any  more  than  Christendom  fully  under- 
stood Augustine,  but  until  long  after  him  the  horizon 
of  Muslims  was  wider  and  their  air  clearer  for  his 
work.  Then  came  a  new  scholasticism,  reigning  to 
this  day. 

So  much  by  way  of  preface.  We  must  now  give 
some  account  of  the  life  and  experiences,  the  ideas 
and  sensations,  of  this  great  leader  and  reformer. 
For  his  life  and  his  work  were  one.  Everything  that 
he  thought  and  wrote  came  with  the  weight  and  real- 
ity of  personal  experience.  He  recognized  this  con- 
nection himself,  and  has  left  us  a  book  —  the  Mun- 
qidh  min  ad-dalal,  "  Eescuer  from  Error " — almost 
unique  in  Islam,  which,  in  the  form  of  an  apology  for 
the  faith,  is  really  an  Apologia  pro  vita  sua.  This 
book  is  our  main  source  for  what  follows. 

Al-Ghazzali  was  born  at  Tus  in  450.     He  lost  his 


EARLY   CAREER  ;   RENUNCIATION  217 

father  when  young  and  was  educated  and  brought  up 
by  a  trusted  Sufi  friend.  He  early  turned  to  the 
study  of  theology  and  canon  law,  but,  as  he  himself 
confesses,  it  was  only  because  they  promised  wealth 
and  reputation.  Very  early  he  broke  away  from 
taqlidy  simple  acceptance  of  religious  truth  on  author- 
ity, and  he  began  to  investigate  theological  differ- 
ences before  he  was  twenty.  His  studies  were  of 
the  broadest,  embracing  canon  law,  theology,  dialectic, 
science,  philosophy,  logic  and  the  doctrines  and  prac- 
tices of  the  Sufis.  It  was  a  Sufi  atmosphere  in  which 
he  moved,  but  their  religious  fervors  do  not  seem  to 
have  laid  hold  of  him.  Pride  in  his  own  intellectual 
powers,  ambition  and  contempt  for  others  of  less  abil- 
ity mastered  him.  The  latter  part  of  his  life  as  a 
student  was  spent  at  Naysabur  as  pupil  and  assistant 
of  the  Imam  al-Haramayn.  Through  the  Imam  he 
stood  in  the  apostolic  succession  of  Ash'arite  teach- 
ers, being  the  fourth  from  al-Ash'ari  himself.  There 
he  remained  till  the  death  of  the  Imam  in  478,  when 
he  went  out  to  seek  his  fortune  and  found  it  with  the 
great  wazir,  Nizam  al-Mulk.  By  him  al-Ghazzali  was 
appointed,  in  484,  to  teach  in  the  Nizamite  Academy 
at  Baghdad.  There  he  had  the  greatest  success  as  a 
teacher  and  consulting  lawyer,  and  his  worldly  hopes 
seemed  safe.  But  suddenly  he  was  struck  down  by  a 
mysterious  disease.  His  speech  became  hampered ; 
his  appetite  and  digestion  failed.  His  physicians 
gave  him  up  ;  his  malady,  they  said,  was  mental  and 
could  only  be  mentally  treated.  His  only  hope  lay  in 
peace  of  mind.  Then  he  suddenly  quitted  Baghdad, 
in  488,  ostensibly  on  pilgrimage   to   Mecca.     This 


218  THEOLOGY 

flight,  for  it  was  so  in  effect,  of  al-Gliazzali  was  unin- 
telligible to  the  theologians  of  the  time ;  since  that 
time  it  has  marked  the  greatest  epoch  in  the  church 
of  Islam  after  the  retui'n  of  al-Ash'ari. 

That  it  should  be  unintelligible  was  natural.  No 
cause  could  be  seen  on  the  surface,  except  some  pos- 
sible political  complications ;  the  cause  in  reality  lay 
in  al-Ghazzali's  mind  and  conscience.  He  was  wan- 
dering in  the  labyrinth  of  his  time.  From  his  youth 
he  had  been  a  sceptical,  ambitious  student,  playing 
with  religious  influences  yet  unaffected  by  them. 
But  the  hollowness  of  his  life  was  ever  present  with 
him  and  pressing  upon  him.  Like  some  with  us,  he 
sought  to  be  converted  and  could  not  bring  it  to  pass. 
His  religious  beliefs  gradually  gave  way  and  fell  from 
him,  piece  by  piece. 

At  last,  the  strain  became  too  great  and  at  the 
court  of  Nizam  al-Mulk  he  touched  for  two  months 
the  depths  of  absolute  scepticism.  He  doubted  the 
evidence  of  the  senses  ;  he  could  see  plainly  that  they 
often  deceived.  No  eye  could  perceive  the  move- 
ment of  a  shadow,  but  still  the  shadow  moved ;  a  gold 
piece  would  cover  any  star,  but  a  star  was  a  world 
larger  than  the  earth.  He  doubted  even  the  primary 
ideas  of  the  mind.  Is  ten  more  than  three  ?  Can  a 
thing  be  and  not  be  ?  Perhaps ;  he  could  not  tell. 
His  senses  deceived  him,  why  not  his  mind?  May 
there  not  be  something  behind  the  mind  and  tran- 
scending it,  which  would  show  the  falsity  of  its  con- 
victions even  as  the  mind  showed  the  falsity  of  the  in- 
formation given  by  the  senses  ?  May  not  the  dreams 
of  the  Sufis  be  true,  and  their  revelations  in  ecstasy 


THE    SEEKERS    OF   HIS   TIME  219 

the  only  real  guides  ?  When  we  awake  in  death,  may 
it  not  be  into  a  true  but  different  existence  ?  All  this 
— perhaps.  And  so  he  wandered  for  two  months. 
He  saw  clearly  that  no  reasoning  could  help  him 
here ;  he  had  no  ideas  on  which  he  could  depend, 
from  which  he  could  begin.  But  the  mercy  of  God 
is  great;  He  sends  His  light  to  whom  He  wills, 
a  light  that  flows  in,  and  is  given  by  no  reasoning. 
By  it  al-Ghazzali  was  saved ;  he  regained  the  power 
to  think,  and  the  task  which  he  now  set  before  him 
was  to  use  this  power  to  guide  himself  to  truth. 

When  he  looked  around,  he  saw  that  those  who  gave 
themselves  to  the  search  for  truth  might  be  divided 
into  four  groups.  There  were  the  scholastic  theolo- 
gians, who  were  much  like  the  theologians  of  all  times 
and  faiths.  Second,  there  were  the  Ta'limites,  who 
held  that  to  reach  truth  one  must  have  an  infallible 
living  teacher,  and  that  there  was  such  a  teacher. 
Third,  there  were  the  followers  of  philosophy,  bas- 
ing on  logical  and  rational  proofs.  Fourth,  there 
were  the  Sufis,  who  held  that  they,  the  chosen  of 
God,  could  reach  knowledge  of  Him  directly  in 
ecstasy.  With  all  these  he  had,  of  course,  been 
acquainted  to  a  greater  or  less  degree ;  but  now  he 
settled  down  to  examine  them  one  by  one,  and  find 
which  would  lead  him  to  a  certainty  to  which  he 
could  hold,  whatever  might  come.  He  felt  that  he 
could  not  go  back  to  the  unconscious  faith  of  his 
childhood ;  that  nothing  could  restore.  All  his  mental 
being  must  be  made  over  before  he  could  find  rest. 
He  began  with  scholastic  theology,  but  found  no 
help  there.     Grant   the  theologians  their   premises 


220  THEOLOGY 

and  they  could  argue ;  deny  them  and  there  was  no 
common  ground  on  which  to  meet.  Their  science 
had  been  founded  by  al-Ash'ari  to  meet  the  Mu'ta- 
zilites ;  it  had  done  that  victoriously,  but  could  do 
no  more.  They  could  hold  the  faith  against  here- 
tics, expose  their  inconsistencies  ;  against  the  sceptic 
they  availed  nothing.  It  is  true  that  they  had  at- 
tempted to  go  further  back  and  meet  the  students 
of  philosoj)hy  on  their  own  ground;  to  deal  with 
substances  and  attributes  and  first  principles  gen- 
erally; but  their  efforts  had  been  fruitless.  They 
lacked  the  necessary  knowledge  of  the  subject,  had 
no  scientific  basis,  and  were  constrained  eventually 
to  fall  back  on  authority.  After  study  of  them  and 
their  methods  it  became  clear  to  al-Ghazzali  that 
the  remedy  for  his  ailment  was  not  in  scholastic 
theology. 

Then  he  turned  to  philosophy.  He  had  seen  al- 
ready that  the  Aveakness  of  the  theologians  lay  in 
their  not  having  made  a  sufficient  study  of  primary 
ideas  and  the  laws  of  thought.  Three  years  he  gave 
up  to  this.  He  was  at  Baghdad  at  the  time,  teach- 
ing law  and  writing  legal  treatises,  and  probably 
the  three  years  extended  from  the  beginning  of  48i 
to  the  beginning  of  487.  Two  years  he  gave,  without 
a  teacher,  to  the  study  of  the  writings  of  the  different 
schools  of  philosophy,  and  almost  another  to  medi- 
tating and  working  over  his  results.  He  felt  that 
he  was  the  first  Muslim  doctor  to  do  this  with  the 
requisite  thoroughness.  And  it  is  noteworthy  that  at 
this  stage  he  seems  to  have  again  felt  himself  to  be  a 
Muslim,  and  in  an  enemy's  country  when  he  was 


MATERIALISTS  ;   DEISTS  ;   THEISTS  221 

studying  philosophy.  He  speaks  of  the  necessity  of 
understanding  what  is  to  be  refuted ;  but  this  may 
be  only  a  confusion  between  his  attitude  when  writing 
after  500,  and  his  attitude  when  investigating  and 
seeking  truth,  fifteen  years  earlier.  He  divides  the 
followers  of  philosophy  in  his  time  into  three  :  Mate- 
rialists, Deists  {Tahi'is,  i.e.  Naturalists),  and  Theists. 
The  materialists  reject  a  creator  ;  the  world  exists 
from  all  eternity  ;  the  animal  comes  from  the  egg 
and  the  egg  from  the  animal.  The  wonder  of  cre- 
ation compels  the  deists  to  admit  a  creator,  but  the 
creature  is  a  machine,  has  a  certain  poise  (i'tidal)  in 
itself  which  keeps  it  running ;  its  thought  is  a  part 
of  its  nature  and  ends  with  death.  They  thus  re- 
ject a  future  life,  though  admitting  God  and  His 
attributes. 

He  deals  at  much  greater  length  with  the  teach- 
ings of  those  whom  he  calls  theists,  but  through 
all  his  statements  of  their  views  his  tone  is  not 
that  of  a  seeker  but  that  of  a  partisan;  he  turns 
his  own  experiences  into  a  warning  to  others,  and 
makes  of  their  record  a  little  guide  to  apologetics. 
Aristotle  he  regards  as  the  final  master  of  the  Greek 
school ;  his  doctrines  are  best  represented  for  Arabic 
readers  in  the  books  of  Ibn  Sina  and  al-Farabi  ;  the 
works  of  their  predecessors  on  this  subject  are  a  mass 
of  confusion.  Part  of  these  doctrines  must  be 
stamped  as  unbelief,  part  as  heresy,  and  part  as 
theologically  indifferent.  He  then  divides  the  philo- 
sophical sciences  into  six,  mathematics,  logic,  phys- 
ics, metaphysics,  political  economy,  ethics  ;  and  dis- 
cusses these  in  detail,  showing  what  must  be  rejected, 


222  THEOLOGY 

what  is  indifferent,  what  dangers  arise  from  each  to 
him  who  studies  or  to  him  who  rejects  without  study. 
Throughout,  he  is  very  cautious  to  mark  nothing  as 
unbelief  that  is  not  really  so  ;  to  admit  always  those 
truths  of  mathematics,  logic,  and  physics  that  cannot 
intellectually  be  rejected ;  and  only  to  warn  against 
an  attitude  of  intellectualism  and  a  belief  that  math- 
ematicians, with  their  success  in  their  own  depart- 
ment, are  to  be  followed  in  other  departments,  or 
that  all  subjects  are  susceptible  of  the  exactness  and 
certainty  of  a  syllogism  in  logic.  The  damnable 
errors  of  the  theists  are  almost  entirely  in  their 
metaphysical  views.  Three  of  their  propositions 
mark  them  as  unbelievers.  First,  they  reject  the 
resurrection  of  the  body  and  physical  punishment 
hereafter ;  the  punishments  of  the  next  world  will 
be  spiritual  only.  That  there  will  be  spiritual  pun- 
ishments, al-Ghazzali  admits,  but  there  will  be  phys- 
ical as  well.  Second,  ^hey  hold  that  God  knows 
universals  only,  not  particulars.  Third,  they  hold 
that  the  world  exists  from  all  eternity  and  to  all 
eternity.  When  they  reject  the  attributes  of  God 
and  hold  that  He  knows  by  His  essence  and  not 
by  something  added  to  His  essence,  they  are  only 
heretics  and  not  unbelievers.  In  physics  he  accepts 
the  constitution  of  the  world  as  developed  and  ex- 
plained by  them ;  only  all  is  to  be  regarded  as  en- 
tirely submitted  to  God,  incapable  of  self-move- 
ment, a  tool  of  which  the  Creator  makes  use. 
Finally,  he  considers  that  their  system  of  ethics  is 
derived  from  the  Sufis.  At  all  times  there  have 
been  such  saints,  retired  from  the  world — God  has 


FAILURE  OF  PHILOSOPHY  223 

never  left  himself  without  a  witness  ;  and  from  their 
ecstasies  and  revelations  our  knowledge  of  the  hu- 
man heart,  for  good  and  for  evil,  is  derived. 

Thus  in  philosophy  he  found  little  light.  It  did 
not  correspond  entirely  to  his  needs,  for  reason  can- 
not answer  all  questions  nor  unveil  all  the  enigmas 
of  life.  He  would  probably  have  admitted  that  he 
had  learned  much  in  his  philosophical  studies — so  at 
least  we  may  gather  from  his  tone ;  he  never  speaks 
disrespectfully  of  philosophy  and  science  in  their 
sphere ;  his  continual  exhortation  is  that  he  who 
would  understand  them  and  refute  them  must  first 
study  them ;  that  to  do  otherwise,  to  abuse  what  we 
do  not  know,  brings  only  contempt  on  ourselves  and 
on  the  cause  which  we  champion.  But  with  his 
temperament  he  could  not  found  his  religion  on  intel- 
lect. As  a  lawyer  he  could  split  hairs  and  define 
issues ;  but  once  the  religious  instinct  was  aroused, 
nothing  could  satisfy  him  but  what  he  eventually 
found.  And  so,  two  possibilities  and  two  only  were 
before  him,  though  one  was  hardly  a  real  possibility, 
if  we  consider  his  training  and  mental  powers.  He 
might  fall  back  on  authority.  It  could  not  be  the 
authority  of  his  childish  faith,  "  Our  fathers  have  told 
us,"  he  himself  confesses,  could  never  again  have 
weight  with  him.  But  it  might  be  some  claimer  of 
authority  in  a  new  form,  some  infallible  teacher  with 
a  doctrine  which  he  could  accept  for  the  authority 
behind  it.  As  the  Church  of  Eome  from  time  to 
time  gathers  into  its  fold  men  of  keen  intellect  who 
seek  rest  in  submission,  and  the  world  marvels,  so  it 
might  have  been  with  him.     Or  again,  he  might  turn 


224  THEOLOGY 

directly  to  God  and  to  personal  intercourse  with 
Him ;  he  might  seek  to  know  Him  and  to  be  taught 
of  Him  without  any  intermediary,  in  a  word  to  enter 
on  the  path  of  the  mystic. 

He  came  next  to  examine  the  doctrine  of  the  Ta'- 
limites.  They,  a  somewhat  outlying  wing  of  the 
Fatimid  propaganda,  had  come  at  this  time  into 
alarming  prominence.  In  483  Hasan  ibn  as-Sabbah 
had  seized  Alamut  and  entered  on  open  rebellion. 
The  sect  of  the  Assassins  was  applying  its  principles. 
But  the  poison  of  their  teaching  was  also  spreading 
among  the  people.  The  principle  of  authority  in  re- 
ligion, that  only  by  an  infallible  teacher  could  truth 
be  reached  and  that  such  an  infallible  teacher  existed 
if  he  could  only  be  found,  was  in  the  air.  For  him- 
self, al-Ghazzali  found  the  Ta'limites  and  their  teach- 
ing eminently  unsatisfactory :  They  had  a  lesson 
which  they  went  over  parrot-fashion,  but  beyond  it 
they  were  in  dense  ignorance.  The  trained  theolo- 
gian and  scholar  had  no  patience  with  their  slack- 
ness and  shallowness  of  thought.  He  labored  long, 
as  ash-Shahrastani  later  confesses  that  he,  too,  did,  to 
penetrate  their  mystery  and  learn  something  from 
them ;  but  beyond  the  accustomed  formulse  there 
was  nothing  to  be  found.  He  even  admitted  their 
contention  of  the  necessity  of  a  living,  infallible 
teacher,  to  see  what  would  follow — but  nothing  fol- 
lowed. "  You  admit  the  necessity  of  an  Imam,"  they 
would  say.  "It  is  your  business  noAV  to  seek  him  ; 
we  have  nothing  to  do  with  it."  But  though  neither 
al-Ghazzali  nor  ash-Shahrastani,  who  died  43  (lunar) 
vears  after  him,  could  be  satisfied  with  the  Ta'lim- 


STUDY   OF  SUFIISM  225 

ites,  many  others  were.     The  conflict  was  hot,  and  al- 
Ghazzali  himself  wrote  several  books  against  them. 

The  other  possibility,  the  path  of  the  mystic, 
now  lay  straight  before  him.  In  the  Mimqidh  he 
tells  us  how,  when  he  had  made  an  end  of  the  Ta*- 
limites,  he  began  to  study  the  books  of  the  Sufis, 
without  any  suggestion  that  he  had  had  a  previous 
acquaintance  with  them  and  their  practices.  But 
probably  this  means  nothing  more  than  it  does  when 
he  speaks  in  a  similar  way  of  studying  the  scholastic 
theologians ;  namely,  that  he  now  took  up  the  study 
in  earnest  and  with  a  new  and  definite  purpose.  He 
therefore  read  carefully  the  works  of  al-Harith  al- 
Muhasibi,  the  fragments  of  al-Junayd,  ash-Shibli, 
and  Abu  Yazid  al-Bistami.  He  had  also  the  benefit 
of  oral  teaching ;  but  it  became  plain  to  him  that 
only  through  ecstasy  and  the  complete  transforma- 
tion of  the  moral  being  could  he  really  understand 
Sufiism.  He  saw  that  it  consisted  in  feelings  more 
than  in  knowledge,  that  he  must  be  initiated  as  a 
Sufi  himself ;  live  their  life  and  practise  their  exer- 
cises, to  attain  his  goal. 

On  the  way  upon  which  he  had  gone  up  to  this 
time,  he  had  gained  three  fixed  points  of  faith. 
He  now  believed  firmly  in  God,  in  prophecy,  and 
in  the  last  judgment.  He  had  also  gained  the  be- 
lief that  only  by  detaching  himself  from  this  world, 
its  life,  enjoyments,  honors,  and  turning  to  God 
could  he  be  saved  in  the  world  to  come.  He  looked 
on  his  present  life,  his  writing  and  his  teachiug, 
and  saw  of  how  little  value  it  was  in  the  face  of  the 
great  fact  of  heaven  and  hell.     All  he  did  now  was  for 


226  THEOLOGY 

the  salve  of  vainglory  and  had  in  it  no  consecration  to 
the  service  of  God.  He  felt  on  the  ed^e  of  an  abyss. 
The  world  held  him  back  ;  his  fears  urged  him  away. 
He  was  in  the  throes  of  a  conversion  wrought  by  ter- 
ror ;  his  religion,  now  and  always,  in  common  with 
all  Islam,  was  other-worldly.  So  he  remained  in 
conflict  with  himself  for  six  months  from  the  middle 
of  488.  Finally,  his  health  broke  down  under  the 
strain.  In  his  feebleness  and  overthrow  he  took  refuge 
with  God,  as  a  man  at  the  end  of  his  resources.  God 
heard  him  and  enabled  him  to  make  the  needed  sac- 
rifices. He  abandoned  all  and  wandered  forth  from 
Baghdad  as  a  Sufi.  He  had  put  his  brilliant  pres- 
ent and  brilliant  future  absolutely  behind  him  ;  had 
given  up  everything  for  the  peace  of  his  soul.  This 
date,  the  end  of  488,  was  the  great  era  in  his  life ; 
but  it  marked  an  era,  too,  in  the  history  of  Islam. 
Since  al-Ash'ari  went  back  to  the  faith  of  his  fathers 
in  300,  and  cursed  the  Mu'tazilites  and  all  their 
works,  there  had  been  no  such  epoch  as  this  flight  of 
al-Gliazzali.  It  meant  that  the  reign  of  mere  scho- 
lasticism was  over ;  that  another  element  was  to 
work  openly  in  the  future  Church  of  Islam,  the  ele- 
ment of  the  mystical  life  in  God,  of  the  attainment  of 
truth  by  the  soul  in  direct  vision. 

He  went  to  Syria  and  gave  himself  up  for  two  yearr 
to  the  religious  exercises  of  the  Sufis.  Then  he  went 
on  pilgrimage,  first  to  Jerusalem  ;  then  to  the  tomb  of 
Abraham  at  Hebron  ;  finally  to  Mecca  and  al-Madina. 
With  this  religious  duty  his  life  of  strict  retirement 
ended.  It  is  evident  that  he  now  felt  tbat  he  was  again 
within  the  fold  of  Islam.    In  spite  of  bis  former  reso- 


ON   THE   PATH   OF   THE   SUFIS  227 

lution  to  retire  from  the  world,  he  was  drawn  back. 
The  prayers  of  his  children  and  his  own  aspirations 
broke  in  upon  hira,  and  though  he  resolved  again 
and  again  to  return  to  the  contemplative  life,  and 
did  often  actually  do  so,  yet  events,  family  affairs, 
and  the  anxieties  of  Hfe,  kept  continually  disturbing 
him. 

This  went  on,  he  tells  us,  for  almost  ten  years,  and 
in  that  time  there  were  revealed  to  him  things  that 
could  not  be  reckoned  and  the  discussion  of  which 
could  not  be  exhausted.  He  learned  that  the  Sufis 
were  on  the  true  and  only  path  to  the  knowledge 
of  God ;  that  neither  intelligence  nor  wisdom  nor 
science  could  change  or  improve  their  doctrine  or 
their  ethics.  The  light  in  which  they  walk  is  es- 
sentially the  same  as  the  light  of  prophecy  ;  Muham- 
mad was  a  Sufi  when  on  his  way  to  be  a  prophet. 
There  is  none  other  light  to  light  any  man  in  this 
world.  A  complete  purifying  of  the  heart  from  all 
but  God  is  their  Path ;  a  seeking  to  plunge  the 
heart  completely  in  the  thought  of  God,  is  its  be- 
ginning, and  its  end  is  complete  passing  away  in 
God.  This  last  is  only  its  end  in  relation  to  what 
can  be  entered  upon  and  grasped  by  a  voluntary  ef- 
fort ;  in  truth,  it  is  only  the  first  step  in  the  Path, 
the  vestibule  to  the  contemplative  life.  Kevelations 
{mukasliafas,  un veilings)  came  to  the  disciples  from 
the  very  beginning ;  while  awake  they  see  angels 
and  souls  of  prophets,  hear  their  voices  and  gain 
from  them  guidance.  Then  their  State  {Jial,  a  Sufi 
technicality  for  a  state  of  ecstasy)  passes  from  the 
beholding  of  forms  to  stages  where  language  fails  and 


228  THEOLOGY 

any  attempt  to  express  what  is  experienced  must 
involve  some  error.  They  reach  a  nearness  to  God 
which  some  have  fancied  to  be  a  hulul,  fusion  of  being, 
others  an  ittihad,  identification,  and  others  a  luiisul, 
union;  but  these  are  all  erroneous  ways  of  indicat- 
ing the  thing.  Al-Ghazzali  notes  one  of  his  books  in 
which  he  has  explained  wherein  the  error  lies.  But 
the  thing  itself  is  the  true  basis  of  all  faith  and  the 
beginning  of  prophecy ;  the  haramat  of  the  saints 
lead  to  the  miracles  of  the  prophets.  By  this  means 
the  possibility  and  the  existence  of  prophecy  can  be 
proved,  and  then  the  life  itself  of  Muhammad  proves 
that  he  was  a  prophet.  Al-Ghazzali  goes  on  to  deal 
with  the  nature  of  prophecy,  and  how  the  life  of  Mu- 
hammad shows  the  truth  of  his  mission  ;  but  enough 
has  been  given  to  indicate  his  attitude  and  the  stage 
at  which  he  had  himself  arrived. 

During  this  ten  years  he  had  returned  to  his  native 
country  and  to  his  children,  but  had  not  undertaken 
public  duty  as  a  teacher.  Now  that  was  forced  upon 
him.  The  century  was  drawing  to  a  close.  Every- 
where there  was  evident  a  slackening  of  religious 
fervor  and  faith.  A  mere  external  compliance  with  the 
rules  of  Islam  was  observed,  men  even  openly  defended 
such  a  course.  He  adduces  as  an  example  of  this 
the  Wasiya  of  Ibn  Sina.  The  students  of  philosophy 
went  their  way,  and  their  conduct  shook  the  minds  of 
the  people ;  false  Sufis  abounded,  who  taught  anti- 
nomianism ;  the  lives  of  many  theologians  excited 
scandal ;  the  Ta'limites  were  still  spreading.  A  re- 
ligious leader  to  turn  the  current  was  absolutely 
needed,  and  his  friends  looked  to  al-Ghazzali  to  take 


THE   TAHAFUT  229 

up  tliat  duty ;  some  distinguished  saints  had  dreams 
of  his  success ;  God  had  promised  a  reformer  every 
hundred  years  and  the  time  was  up.  Finally,  the 
Sultan  laid  a  command  upon  him  to  go  and  teach  in 
the  academy  at  Naysabur,  and  he  was  forced  to  con- 
sent. His  departure  for  Naysabur  fell  at  the  end  of 
499,  exactly  eleven  years  after  his  flight  from  Bagh- 
dad. But  he  did  not  teach  there  long.  Before  the 
end  of  his  life  we  find  him  back  at  Tus,  his  native  place, 
living  in  retirement  among  his  disciples,  in  a  Ma- 
drasa  or  academy  for  students  and  a  Khanqah  or 
monastery  for  Sufis. 

There  he  settled  down  to  study  and  contemplation. 
We  have  already  seen  Avhat  theological  position  he  had 
reached.     Philosophy  had  been  tried  and  found  want- 
ing.  In  a  book  of  his  called  Tahafut,  or  "Destruction," 
he  had  smitten  the  philosophers  hip  and  thigh ;  he 
had  turned,  as  in  earlier  times  al-Ash'ari,  their  own 
weapons    against  them,  and  had  shown   that   with 
their  premises  and  methods  no  certainty   could  be 
reached.     In  that  book  he  goes  to  the  extreme  of  in- 
tellectual scepticism,  and,  seven  hundred  years  be- 
fore Hume,  he  cuts  the  bond  of  causality  with  the 
edge  of  his  dialectic  and  proclaims  that  we  can  know 
nothing  of  cause  or  effect,  but  simply  that  one  thing 
follows   another.     He    combats   their   proof   of   the 
eternity  of  the  world,  and  exposes  their  assertion  that 
God  is  its  creator.     He  demonstrates  that  they  can- 
not prove  the  existence  of  the  creator  or  that  that 
creator    is  one ;  that  they  cannot  prove  that  He  is 
incorporeal,  or    that  the  world  has  any    creator  or 
cause   at  all;  that  they  cannot  prove  the  nature  of 


230  THEOLOGY 

God  or  that  the  human  soul  is  a  spiritual  essence. 
"When  he  has  finished  there  is  no  intellectual  basis 
left  for  life ;  he  stands  beside  the  Greek  sceptics  and 
beside  Hume.  We  are  thrown  back  on  revelation, 
that  given  immediately  by  God  to  the  individual 
soul  or  that  given  through  prophets.  All  our  real 
knowledge  is  derived  from  these  sources.  So  it  was 
natural  that  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life  he  should 
turn  to  the  traditions  of  the  Prophet.  The  science  of 
tradition  must  certainly  have  formed  part  of  his  early 
studies,  as  of  those  of  all  Muslim  theologians,  but  he 
had  not  specialized  in  it ;  his  bent  had  lain  in  quite 
other  directions.  His  master,  the  Imam  al-Hara- 
mayn,  had  been  no  student  of  tradition ;  among  his 
many  works  is  not  one  dealing  with  that  subject. 
Now  he  saw  that  the  truth  and  the  knowledge  of  the 
truth  lay  there,  and  he  gave  himself,  with  all  the 
energy  of  his  nature,  to  the  new  pursuit. 

The  end  of  his  wanderings  came  at  Tus,  in  505. 
There  he  died  while  seeking  truth  in  the  traditions  of 
Muhammad,  as  al-Ash'ari,  his  predecessor,  had  done. 
The  stamp  of  his  personality  is  ineffaceably  impressed 
on  Islam.  The  people  of  his  time  reverenced  him 
as  a  saint  and  wonder-worker.  He  himself  never 
claimed  to  work  karamat  and  always  spoke  modestly 
of  the  light  which  he  had  reached  in  ecstasy.  After 
his  death  legends  early  began  to  gather  round  him, 
and  the  current  biographies  of  him  are  untrustworthy 
to  a  degree.  It  says  much  for  the  solidity  of  his 
work  that  he  did  not  pass  into  a  misty  figure  of  pop- 
ular superstition.  But  that  work  remained  and  re- 
mains among  his  disciples  and  in  his  books.     We 


VOLITION   AS   A   BASIS  231 

must    now    attempt   to    estimate    its    bearing    and 
scope. 

For  him,  as  for  the  mntakallims  in  general,  the 
fundamental  thing  iu  the  world  and  the  starting-point 
of  all  speculation  is  will.  The  philosophers  in  their 
intellectualism  might  picture  God  as  thought — • 
thought  thinking  itself  and  evolving  all  things 
thereby.  Their  source  was  Plotinus ;  that  of  the 
Muslims  was  the  terrific  "  Be ! "  of  creation.  But 
how  can  we  know  this  will  of  God  if  we  are  simply 
part  of  what  it  has  produced  ?  In  answering  this, 
al-Ghazzali  and  his  followers  have  diverged  from  the 
rest  of  Islam,  but  not  into  heresy.  Their  view  is 
admitted  to  be  a  possible  interpretation  of  Quranic 
passages,  if  not  that  commonly  held.  The  soul  of 
man,  al-Ghazzali  taught,  is  essentially  different  from 
the  rest  of  the  created  things.  We  read  in  the  Qur'an 
(xv,  29 ;  xxxviii,  72)  that  God  breathed  into  man  of 
His  spirit  (ruh).  This  is  compared  with  the  rays  of 
the  sun  reaching  a  thing  on  the  earth  and  warming  it. 
In  virtue  of  this,  the  soul  of  man  is  different  from 
everything  else  in  the  world.  It  is  a  spiritual  sub- 
stance {JaiuJiar  ruhani),  has  no  corporeality,  and  is 
not  subject  to  dimension,  position  or  locality.  It  is 
not  in  the  body  or  outside  of  the  body;  to  apply 
such  categories  to  it  is  as  absurd  as  to  speak  of  the 
knowledge  or  ignorance  of  a  stone.  Though  created, 
it  is  not  shaped ;  it  belongs  to  the  spiritual  world 
and  not  to  this  world  of  sensible  things.  It  contains 
some  spark  of  the  divine  and  it  is  restless  till  it  rests 
again  in  that  primal  fire ;  but,  again,  it  is  recorded  in 
tradition  that  the  Prophet  said,  "  God  Most  High 


232  THEOLOGY 

created  Adam  in  His  own  form  {sura)y  Al-Ghazzali 
takes  that  to  mean  that  there  is  a  likeness  between 
the  spirit  of  man  and  God  in  essence,  quality,  and 
actions.  Further,  the  spirit  of  man  rules  the  body 
as  God  rules  the  world.  Man's  body  is  a  microcosm 
beside  the  macrocosm  of  this  world,  and  they  cor- 
respond, part  by  part.  Ts,  then,  God  simply  the 
anima  mundi  ?  No,  because  He  is  the  creator  of  all 
by  His  will,  the  sustainer  and  destroyer  by  His  will. 
Al-Ghazzali  comes  to  this  by  a  study  of  himself.  His 
primary  conception  is,  volo  ergo  sum.  It  is  not 
thought  which  impresses  him,  but  volition.  From 
thought  he  can  develop  nothing ;  from  will  can  come 
the  whole  round  universe.  But  if  God,  the  Creator, 
is  a  Wilier,  so,  too,  is  the  soul  of  man.  They  are  kin, 
and,  therefore,  man  can  know  and  recognize  God. 
"  He  who  knows  his  own  soul,  knows  his  Lord,"  said 
another  tradition. 

This  view  of  the  nature  of  the  soul  is  essential  to 
the  Sufi  position  and  is  probably  borrowed  from  it. 
But  there  are  in  it  two  possibilities  of  heresy,  if  the 
view  be  pushed  any  further.  It  tends  (1)  to  destroy 
the  important  Muslim  dogma  of  God's  Difference 
{mukhalafa)  from  all  created  things,  and  (2)  to  main- 
tain that  the  souls  of  men  are  partakers  of  the  divine 
nature  and  will  return  to  it  at  death.  Al-Ghazzali 
labored  to  safeguard  both  dangers,  but  they  were 
there  and  showed  themselves  in  time.  Just  as  the 
Aristotelian  +  neo-Platonic  philosophers  reached  the 
position  that  the  universe  with  all  its  spheres  was 
God,  so,  later,  Sufis  came  to  the  other  pantheistic 
position  that  God  was  the  world.     Before  the  atomic 


DIVINE   ORIGIN   OF   SCIENCES  233 

scholastics  the  same  danger  also  lay.  It  is  part  of 
the  irony  of  the  history  of  Muslim  theology  that  the 
very  emphasis  on  the  transcendental  unity  should 
lead  thus  to  pantheism.  Al-Ghazzali's  endeavor  was 
to  strike  the  via  media.  The  Hegelian  Trinity  might 
have  appealed  to  him. 

To  return,  his  views  on  science,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  were  the  same  as  those  of  the  contemporary 
students  of  natural  jDhilosophy.  Their  teachings  he 
accepted,  and,  so  far,  he  can  be  compared  to  a  theo- 
logian of  the  present  day,  who  accepts  evolution  and 
explains  it  to  suit  himself.  His  world  was  framed  on 
what  is  commonly  called  the  Ptolemaic  system.  He 
was  no  flat-earth  man  like  the  present  Ulama  of 
Islam ;  God  had  "  spread  out  the  earth  like  a  carpet," 
but  that  did  not  hinder  him  from  regarding  it  as  a 
globe.  Around  it  revolve  the  spheres  of  the  seven 
planets  and  that  of  the  fixed  stars ;  Alphonso  the 
Wise  had  not  yet  added  the  crystalline  sphere  and 
the  primum  mobile.  All  that  astronomers  and  mathe- 
maticians teach  us  of  the  laws  under  which  these 
bodies  move  is  to  be  accepted.  Their  theory  of 
eclipses  and  of  other  phenomena  of  the  heavens  is 
true,  whatever  the  ignorant  and  superstitious  may 
clamor.  Yet  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  most 
important  facts  and  laws  have  been  divinely  revealed. 
As  the  weightiest  truths  of  medicine  are  to  be  traced 
back  to  the  teaching  of  the  prophets,  so  there  are  con- 
junctions in  the  heavens  which  occur  only  once  in  a 
thousand  years  and  which  man  can  yet  calculate  be- 
cause God  has  taught  him  their  laws.  And  all  this 
structure  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth  is  the  direct 


234  THEOLOGY 

work  of  God,  produced  out  of  nothing  by  His  will, 
guided  by  His  will,  ever  dependent  for  existence  on 
His  will,  and  one  day  to  pass  away  at  His  command. 
So  al-Gliazzali  joins  science  and  revelation.  Behind 
the  order  of  nature  lies  the  personal,  omnipotent  God 
who  says,  "Be!  "  and  it  is.  The  things  of  existence 
do  not  proceed  from  Him  by  any  emanation  or  evolu- 
tion, but  are  produced  directly  by  Him. 

Further,  there  is  another  side  of  al-Ghazzali's  atti- 
tude toward  the  physical  universe  that  deserves  atten- 
tion, but  which  is  very  difficult  to  grasp  or  express. 
Perhaps  it  may  be  stated  thus :  Existence  has  three 
modes ;  there  is  existence  in  the  alam  al-mulk^  in  the 
alam  al-jabarut,  and  in  the  alam  al-malakut.  The  first 
is  this  world  of  ours  which  is  apparent  to  the  senses ; 
it  exists  by  the  power  {qudra)  of  God,  one  part  pro- 
ceeding from  another  in  constant  change.  The  alam 
al-malakut  exists  by  God's  eternal  decree,  without 
development,  remaining  in  one  state  without  addition 
or  diminution.  The  ala7n  al-jabarut  comes  between 
these  two  ;  it  seems  externally  to  belong  to  the  first, 
but  in  respect  of  the  power  of  God  which  is  from  all 
eternity  {al-qudra  al-azaliya)  it  is  included  in  the 
second.  The  soul  {nafs)  belongs  to  the  alam  al- 
malakut,  is  taken  from  it  and  returns  to  it.  In  sleep 
and  in  ecstasy,  even  in  this  world,  it  can  come  into 
contact  with  the  world  from  which  it  is  derived.  This 
is  what  happens  in  dreams — "  sleep  is  the  brother  of 
death,"  says  al-Ghazzali ;  and  thus,  too,  the  saints 
and  the  prophets  attain  divine  knowledge.  Some 
angels  belong  to  the  world  of  malakut ;  some  to  that 
of  Jaharut,  apparently  those  who  have  shown  them- 


THE   THREE    WORLDS  235 

selves  here  as  messengers  of  God.  The  things  in  the 
heavens,  the  preserved  tablet,  the  pen,  the  balance, 
etc.,  belong  to  the  world  of  malakut.  On  the  one 
hand,  these  are  not  sensible,  corporeal  things,  and, 
on  the  other,  these  terms  for  them  are  not  metaphors. 
Thus  al-Ghazzali  avoids  the  difficulty  of  Muslim 
eschatology  with  its  bizarre  concreteness.  He  rejects 
the  right  to  allegorize — these  things  are  real,  actual ; 
but  he  relegates  them  to  this  world  of  malakut. 
Again,  the  Qur'an,  Islam,  and  Friday  (the  day  of  pub- 
lic worship)  are  personalities  in  the  world  of  malakut 
andjabarut.  So,  too,  the  world  of  miilk  must  appear 
as  a  personality  at  the  bar  of  these  other  worlds  at 
the  last  day.  It  will  come  as  an  ugly  old  woman,  but 
Friday  as  a  beautiful  young  bride.  This  personal 
Qur'an  belongs  to  the  world  oijabarut,  but  Islam  to 
that  of  malakut. 

But  just  as  those  three  worlds  are  not  thought  of 
as  separate  in  time,  so  they  are  not  separate  in  space. 
They  are  not  like  the  seven  heavens  and  seven  earths 
of  Muslim  literalists,  which  stand,  story-fashion,  one 
above  the  other.  Eather  they  are,  as  expressed  above, 
modes  of  existence,  and  might  be  compared  to  the 
speculations  on  another  life  in  space  of  n  dimensions, 
framed,  from  a  very  different  starting-point  and  on  a 
basis  of  pure  physics,  by  Balfour  Stewart  and  Tait 
in  their  "  Unseen  Universe."  On  another  side  they 
stand  in  close  kinship  to  the  Platonic  world  of  ideas, 
whether  through  neo-Platonism  or  more  immediately. 
Sufiism  at  its  best,  and  when  stripped  of  the  trap- 
pings of  Muslim  tradition  and  Qur'anic  exegesis,  has 
no  reason  to  shrink  from  the  investigation  either  of 


236  THEOLOGY 

the  physicist  or  of  the  metaphysician.  And  so  it  is 
not  strange  to  find  that  all  Muslim  thinkers  have  been 
tinged  with  mysticism  to  a  greater  or  less  degree, 
though  they  may  not  all  have  embraced  formal 
Sufiism  and  accepted  its  vocabulary  and  system. 
This  is  true  of  al-Farabi,  who  was  avowedly  a  Sufi ; 
true  also  of  Ibn  Sina,  who,  though  nominally  an 
Aristotelian,  was  essentially  a  neo-Platonist,  and  ad- 
mitted the  possibility  of  intercourse  with  superior 
beings  and  with  the  Active  Intellect,  of  miracles  and 
revelations ;  true  even  of  Ibn  Bushd,  who  does  not 
venture  to  deny  the  immediate  knowledge  of  the  Sufi 
saints,  but  only  argues  that  experience  of  it  is  not 
sufficiently  general  to  be  made  a  basis  for  theological 
science. 

In  ethics,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  position  of 
al-Ghazzali  is  a  simple  one.  All  our  laws  and  theories 
upon  the  subject,  the  analysis  of  the  qualities  of  the 
mind,  good  and  bad,  the  tracing  of  hidden  defects  to 
their  causes — all  these  things  we  owe  to  the  saints  of 
God  to  whom  God  Himself  has  revealed  them.  Of 
these  there  have  been  many  at  all  times  and  in  all 
countries,  and  without  them  and  their  labors  and  the 
light  which  God  has  vouchsafed  to  them,  we  could 
never  know  ourselves.  Here,  as  everywhere,  comes 
out  al-Ghazzali's  fundamental  position  that  the  ulti- 
mate source  of  all  knowledge  is  revelation  from  God. 
It  may  be  major  revelation,  through  accredited  proph- 
ets who  come  forward  as  teachers,  divinely  sent 
and  supported  by  miracles  and  by  the  evident  truth 
of  their  message  appealing  to  the  human  heart,  or  it 
may  be  minor  revelation — subsidiary  and  explanatory 


AGNOSTIC   ATTITUDE  237 

— througli  the  vast  body  of  saints  of  different  grades, 
to  whom  God  has  granted  immediate  knowledge  of 
Himself.  Where  the  saints  leave  off,  the  prophets 
begin;  and,  apart  from  such  teaching,  man,  even 
in  physical  science,  would  be  groping  in  the 
dark. 

This  position  becomes  still  more  prominent  in  his 
philosophical  system.  His  agnostic  attitude  toward 
the  results  of  pure  thought  has  been  already  sketched. 
It  is  essentially  the  same  as  that  taken  up  by  Mansell 
in  his  Bampton  lectures  on  "  The  Limits  of  Eeligious 
Thought."  Mansell,  a  pupil  and  continuator  of  Ham- 
ilton, developed  and  emphasized  Hamilton's  doctrine 
of  the  relativity  of  knowledge,  and  applied  it  to  the- 
ology, maintaining  that  we  cannot  know  or  think  of 
the  absolute  and  infinite,  but  only  of  the  relative  and 
finite.  Hence,  he  went  on  to  argue,  we  can  have  no 
positive  knowledge  of  the  attributes  of  God.  This, 
though  disguised  by  the  methods  and  language  of 
scholastic  philosophy,  is  al-Ghazzali's  attitude  in  the 
Taliafut.  Mansell's  opponents  said  that  he  was  like 
a  man  sitting  on  the  branch  of  a  tree  and  sawing  off 
his  seat.  Al-Ghazzali,  for  the  support  of  his  seat, 
went  back  to  revelation,  either  major,  in  the  books 
sent  down  to  the  prophets,  or  minor,  in  the  personal 
revelations  of  God's  saints.  Further,  it  was  not  onlv 
in  the  Muslim  schools  that  this  attitude  toward  phi- 
losophy prevailed.  Yehuda  Halevi  (d.  a.d.  1145  ;  al- 
Ghazzali,  d.  1111)  also  maintains  in  his  Kusari  the 
insufficiency  of  philosophy  in  the  highest  questions 
of  life,  and  bases  religious  truth  on  the  incontrovert- 
ible historical  facts  of  revelation.     And  Maimonides 


238  THEOLOGY 

(d.  A.D.  1204)  in  his  Moreh  NehucMm  takes  essentially 
the  same  position. 

Of  his  views  on  dogmatic  theology  little  need  be 
said.  Among  modern  theologians  he  stands  nearest 
to  Ritschl.  Like  Ritschl,  he  rejects  metaphysics  and 
opposes  the  influence  of  any  philosophical  system  on 
his  theology.  The  basis  must  be  religious  phenom- 
ena, simply  accepted  and  correlated.  Like  Bitschl, 
too,  he  was  emphatically  ethical  in  his  attitude ;  he 
lays  stress  on  the  value  for  us  of  a  doctrine  or  a  piece 
of  knowledge.  Our  source  of  religious  knowledge  is 
revelation,  and  beyond  a  certain  point  we  must  not 
inquire  as  to  the  how  and  why  of  that  knoAvledge. 
To  do  so  would  be  to  enter  metaphysics  and  the 
danger-zone  where  we  lose  touch  with  vital  realities 
and  begin  to  use  mere  words.  On  one  point  he  goes 
beyond  Eitschl,  and,  on  another,  Ritschl  goes  beyond 
him.  In  his  devotion  to  the  facts  of  the  religious 
consciousness  Ritschl  did  not  go  so  far  as  to  become 
a  mystic,  indeed  rejected  mysticism  with  a  conscious 
indignation ;  al-Ghazzali  did  become  a  mystic.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  Ritschl  refused  absolutely  to  enter 
upon  the  nature  of  God  or  upon  the  divine  attributes 
— all  that  was  mere  metaphysics  and  heathenism  ; 
al-Ghazzali  did  not  so  far  emancipate  himself,  and 
his  only  advance  w^as  to  keep  the  doctrine  on  a  strictly 
Qur'anic  basis.  So  it  stands  written ;  not,  so  man  is 
compelled  by  the  nature  of  things  to  think. 

His  work  and  influence  in  Islam  may  be  summed 
up  briefly  as  follows :  First,  he  led  men  back  from 
scholastic  labors  upon  theological  dogmas  to  living 
contact  with,  study  and  exegesis  of,  the  Word  and  the 


WOEK   AND   INFLUENCE  239 

traditions.  What  happened  in  Europe  when  the 
yoke  of  mediaeval  scholasticism  was  broken,  what  is 
happening  with  us  now,  happened  in  Islam  under  his 
leadership.  He  could  be  a  scholastic  with  scholastics, 
but  to  state  and  develop  theological  doctrine  on  a 
Scriptural  basis  was  emphatically  his  method.  We 
should  now  call  him  a  Biblical  theologian. 

Second,  in  his  teaching  and  moral  exhortations  he 
reintroduced  the  element  of  fear.  In  the  Munqidh 
and  elsewhere  he  lays  stress  on  the  need  of  such  a 
striking  of  terror  into  the  minds  of  the  people.  His 
was  no  time,  he  held,  for  smooth,  hopeful  preaching ; 
no  time  for  optimism  either  as  to  this  world  or  the 
next.  The  horrors  of  hell  must  be  kept  before  men ; 
he  had  felt  them  himself.  We  have  seen  how  other- 
worldly was  his  own  attitude,  and  how  the  fear  of 
the  Fire  had  been  the  supreme  motive  in  his  conver- 
sion ;  and  so  he  treated  others. 

Third,  it  was  by  his  influence  that  Sufiism  at- 
tained a  firm  and  assured  position  in  the  Church  of 
Islam. 

Fourth,  he  brought  philosophy  and  philosophical 
theology  within  the  range  of  the  ordinary  mind. 
Before  his  time  they  had  been  surrounded,  more  or 
less,  with  mystery.  The  language  used  was  strange ; 
its  vocabulary  and  terms  of  art  had  to  be  specially 
learned.  No  mere  reader  of  the  Arabic  of  the  street 
or  the  mosque  or  the  school  could  understand  at 
once  a  philosophical  tractate.  Greek  ideas  and  ex- 
pressions, passing  through  a  Syriac  version  into 
Arabic,  had  strained  to  the  uttermost  the  resources  of 
even  that  most  flexible  tongue.     A  long  training  had 


240  THEOLOGY 

been  thought  necessary  before  the  elaborate  and 
formal  method  of  argumentation  could  be  followed. 
All  this  al-Ghazzali  changed,  or  at  least  tried  to 
change.  His  Tahafiit  is  not  addressed  to  scholars 
only ;  he  seeks  with  it  a  wider  circle  of  readers,  and 
contends  that  the  views,  the  arguments,  and  the  falla- 
cies of  the  philosophers  should  be  perfectly  intelli- 
gible to  the  general  public. 

Of  these  four  phases  of  al-Ghazzali's  work,  the 
first  and  the  third  are  undoubtedly  the  most  impor- 
tant. He  made  his  mark  by  leading  Islam  back  to 
its  fundamental  and  historical  facts,  and  by  giving  a 
place  in  its  system  to  the  emotional  religious  life. 
But  it  will  have  been  noticed  that  in  none  of  the  four 
phases  was  he  a  pioneer.  He  was  not  a  scholar  who 
struck  out  a  new  path,  but  a  man  of  intense  personal- 
ity who  entered  on  a  path  already  blazed  and  made 
it  the  common  highway.  We  have  here  his  charac- 
ter. Other  men  may  have  been  keener  logicians, 
more  learned  theologians,  more  gifted  saints  ;  but  he, 
through  his  personal  experiences,  had  attained  so 
overpowering  a  sense  of  the  divine  realities  that  the 
force  of  his  character — once  combative  and  restless, 
now  narroAved  and  intense — swept  all  before  it,  and 
the  Church  of  Islam  entered  on  a  new  era  of  its  ex- 
istence. 

So  much  space  it  has  been  necessary  to  give  to 
this  great  man.  Islam  has  never  outgrown  him,  has 
never  fully  understood  him.  In  the  renaissance  of 
Islam  which  is  now  rising  to  view  his  time  will  come 
and  the  new  life  will  proceed  from  a  renewed  study 
of  his  works. 


LATER  ASH'ARITES  241 

From  tliis  time  on,  the  Asli'arites  may  be  fairly 
regarded  as  the  dominant  school  so  far  as  the  East 
is  concerned.  Saladin  (d.  589)  did  much  to  aid  in 
the  establishment  of  this  hegemony.  He  was  a  de- 
vout Muslim  with  the  taste  of  an  amateur  for  theolog- 
ical literature.  Anecdotes  tell  how  he  had  a  special 
little  catechism  composed,  and  used  himself  to  in- 
struct his  children  in  it.  He  founded  theological 
academies  in  Egypt  at  Alexandria  and  Cairo,  the 
first  there  except  the  Fatimid  Hall  of  Science. 
One  of  the  few  blots  on  his  name  is  the  execution 
of  the  pantheistic  Sufi,  Shihab  ad-Din  as-Suhrawardi, 
at  Aleppo  in  587.  Meanwhile,  in  the  farther  East, 
Fakhr  ad-Din  ar-Razi  (d.  606)  was  writing  his  great 
commentary  on  the  Qur'an,  the  Mafatih  al-Ghayh, 
*'  The  Keys  of  the  Unseen,"  and  carrying  on  the  work 
of  al-Ghazzali.  The  title  of  his  commentary  itself 
shows  the  dash  of  mysticism  in  his  teaching,  and  he 
was  in  correspondence  with  Ibn  Arabi,  the  arch-Sufi 
of  the  time.  He  studied  philosophy,  too,  commented 
on  works  of  Ibn  Sina,  and  fought  the  philosophers 
on  their  own  ground  as  al-Ghazzali  had  done.  Kalam 
and  philosophy  are  now,  in  the  eyes  of  the  theolo- 
gians, a  true  philosophy  and  a  false.  Philosophy 
has  taken  the  place  of  Mu'tazilism  and  the  other 
heresies.  The  enemies  of  the  faith  are  outside  its 
pale,  and  the  scholasticizing  of  philosophy  goes  on 
steadily.  According  to  some,  a  new  stage  was  marked 
by  al-Baydawi  (d.  685),  who  confused  inextricably 
philosophy  and  kalam,  but  the  newness  can  have 
been  comparative  only.  A  century  later  al-Iji  (d.  756) 
writes  a  book,  al-Maiuaqif,  on  kalam,  half  of  which  is 


242  THEOLOGY 

given  to  metaphysics  and  the  other  half  to  dogmatics. 
At-Taftazani  is  another  name  worthy  of  mention. 
He  died  in  791,  after  a  laborious  life  as  a  controver- 
sialist and  commentator.  When  we  reach  Ibn  Khal- 
dun  (d.  808),  the  first  philosophical  historian  and  the 
greatest  until  the  nineteenth  century  of  our  era,  we 
find  that  kalam  has  fallen  again  from  its  high  estate. 
It  has  become  a  scholastic  discipline,  useful  only  to 
repel  the  attacks  of  heretics  and  unbelievers  ;  and  of 
heretics,  says  Ibn  Khaldun,  there  are  now  none  left. 
Eeason,  he  goes  on,  cannot  grasp  the  nature  of  God ; 
cannot  weigh  His  unity  nor  measure  His  qualities. 
God  is  unknowable  and  we  must  accept  what  we  are 
told  about  Him  by  His  prophets.  Such  was  the  re- 
sult of  the  destruction  of  philosophy  in  Islam. 


CHAPTEK  V 

Islam  in  the  West ;  Ibn  Tumart  and  the  Muwahhid? ;  philosophy 
in  the  West  under  Muwahhid  protection ;  Ibn  Bajja;  Ibn  Tu- 
f ayl ;  Ibn  Rushd ;  Ibn  Arabi ;  Ibn  Sab'in. 

We  have  now  anticipated  one  of  the  strangest  and 
most  characteristic  figures  and  movements  in  the 
history  of  Islam.  The  preceding  account,  except  as 
relates  to  Ibn  Khaldun,  has  told  of  the  triumphs  of 
the  Ash'arites  in  the  East  only.  In  the  AVest  the 
movement  was  slower,  and  to  it  we  must  now  turn. 
The  Maghrib — the  Occident,  as  the  Arabs  called  all 
North  Africa  beyond  Egypt — had  been  slow  from  the 
first  to  take  on  the  Muslim  impress.  The  invading 
army  had  fought  its  way  painfully  through,  but  the 
Berber  tribes  remained  only  half  subdued  and  one- 
tenth  Islamized.  Egypt  was  conquered  in  a.h.  20, 
and  Samarqand  had  been  reached  in  56  ;  but  it  was 
not  till  74  that  the  Muslims  were  at  Carthage.  And 
even  then  and  for  long  after  there  arose  insurrection 
after  insurrection,  and  the  national  spirit  of  the  Ber- 
bers remained  unbroken.  Broadly,  but  correctly, 
Islam  in  North  Africa  for  more  than  three  centuries 
was  a  failure.  The  tribal  constitutions  of  the  Berbers 
were  unaffected  by  the  conception  of  the  Khalifate 
and  their  primitive  religious  aspirations  by  the  Faith 
of  Muhammad.    Not  till  the  possibility  came  to  them 

to  construct  Muslim  states  out  of  their  own  tribes 

243 


244  TnEOLOGY 

did  their  opposition  begin  to  weaken.  And  then  it 
was  rather  political  Islam  that  had  weakened.  When 
the  Fatimids  conquered  Egypt  in  356  and  moved  the 
seat  of  their  empire  from  al-Mahdiya  to  the  newly 
founded  Cairo,  Islam  assumed  a  new  meaning  for 
North  Africa.  The  Fatimid  empire  there  quickly 
melted  away,  and  in  its  place  arose  several  inde- 
pendent states,  Berber  in  blood  though  claiming 
Arab  descent  and  bearing  Arab  names.  Islam  no 
longer  meant  foreign  oppression,  and  it  began  at  last 
to  make  its  way.  Again,  in  the  preceding  period  of 
insurrection  the  Berber  leaders  had  frequently  ap- 
peared in  the  guise  and  with  the  claim  of  prophets, 
men  miraculously  gifted  and  with  a  message  from 
God.  These  wild  tribesmen,  with  all  their  fanati- 
cism for  their  own  tribal  liberties,  have  always  been 
peculiarly  accessible  to  the  genius  which  claims  its 
mission  from  heaven.  So  they  had  taken  up  the 
Fatimid  cause  and  worshipped  Ubayd  Allah  the 
Mahdi.  And  so  they  continued  thereafter,  and  still 
continue  to  be  swayed  by  saints,  darwishes,  and 
prophets  of  all  degrees  of  insanity  and  cunning. 
The  latest  case  in  point  is  that  of  the  Shaykh  as- 
Sanusi,  with  whom  we  have  already  dealt.  As  time 
went  on,  there  came  a  change  in  these  prophet-led 
risings  and  saint-founded  states.  They  gradually 
slipped  over  from  being  frankly  anti-Muhammadan, 
if  also  close  imitations  of  Muhammad's  life  and 
methods,  to  being  equally  frankly  Muslim.  The  the- 
ology of  Islam  easily  afforded  them  the  necessary 
point  of  connection.  All  that  the  prophet  of  the  day 
need  do  was  to  claim  the  position  of  the  Mahdi,  that 


IBN   TUMAET  245 

Guided  One,  who  according  to  the  traditions  of  Mu- 
hammad was  to  come  before  the  last  day,  when  the 
earth  shall  be  filled  with  violence,  and  to  fill  it  again 
with  righteousness.  It  was  easy  for  each  new  Mahdi 
to  select  from  the  vast  and  contradictory  mass  of  tra- 
ditions in  Muslim  eschatology  those  which  best  fitted 
his  person  and  his  time.  To  the  story  and  the  doc- 
trine of  one  of  these  we  now  come. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century  a  certain 
Berber  student  of  theology,  Ibn  Tumart  by  name, 
travelled  in  the  East  in  search  of  knowledge.  An 
early  and  persistent  western  tradition  asserts  that  he 
was  a  favorite  pupil  of  al-Ghazzali's,  and  was  marked 
out  by  him  as  showing  the  signs  of  a  future  founder 
of  empire.  This  may  be  taken  for  what  it  is  worth. 
What  is  certain  is  that  Ibn  Tumart  went  back  to  the 
Maghrib  and  there  brought  about  the  triumph  of  a 
doctrine  which  was  derived,  if  modified,  from  that  of 
the  Ash'arites.  Previously  all  kalam  had  been  under 
a  cloud  in  the  West.  Theological  studies  had  been 
closely  limited  to  fiqli,  or  canon  law,  and  that  of  the 
narrowed  school  of  Malik  ibn  Anas.  Even  the  Qur'an 
and  the  collections  of  traditions  had  come  to  be  neg- 
lected in  favor  of  systematized  law-books.  The 
revolt  of  Ibn  Hazm  against  this  had  apparently  ac- 
complished little.  It  had  been  too  one-sided  and 
negative,  and  had  lacked  the  weight  of  personality 
behind  it.  Ibn  Hazm  had  assailed  the  views  of 
others  with  a  wealth  of  vituperative  language.  But 
he  had  been  a  controversialist  only.  There  is  a 
stor}^  tolerably  well  authenticated,  that  the  books  of 
al-Ghazzali  were  solemnly  condemned  by  the  Qadis 


246  THEOLOGY 

of  Cordova,  and  burnt  in  public.  Yet,  against  that 
is  to  be  set  that  all  the  Spanish  theologians  did  not 
approve  of  this  violence. 

Ibn  Tumart  started  in  life  as  a  reformer  of  the  cor- 
ruptions of  his  day,  and  seems  to  have  slipped  from 
that  into  the  belief  that  he  had  been  appointed  by 
God  as  the  great  reformer  for  all  time.  As  happens 
with  reformers,  from  exhortation  it  came  to  force  ; 
from  preaching  at  the  abuses  of  the  government  to 
rebellion  against  the  government.  That  government, 
the  Murabit,  went  down  before  Ibn  Tumart  and  his 
successors,  and  the  pontifical  rule  of  the  Muwahhids, 
the  asserters  of  God's  tmuMd  or  unity,  rose  in  its 
place.  The  doctrine  which  he  preached  bears  evi- 
dent marks  of  the  influence  of  al-Ghazzali  and  of  Ibn 
Hazm.  Taivliid,  for  him,  meant  a  complete  spirit- 
ualizing of  the  conception  of  God.  Opposed  to  taiv- 
hid,  he  set  tajsim,  the  assigning  to  God  of  a  jism  or 
body  having  bulk.  Thus,  when  the  theologians  of  the 
West  took  the  anthropomorphic  passages  of  the  Qur'an 
literally,  he  applied  to  them  the  method  of  ta'ioil,  or 
interpretation,  which  he  had  learned  in  the  East,  and 
explained  away  these  stumbling-blocks.  Ibn  Hazm, 
it  will  be  remembered,  resorted  to  grammatical  and 
lexicographical  devices  to  attain  the  same  end,  and 
had  regarded  tahvil  with  abhorrence.  To  Ibn  Tumart, 
then,  this  tajsim  was  flat  unbelief  and,  as  Mahdi,  it 
was  his  duty  to  oppose  it  by  force  of  arms,  to  lead  a 
jihad  against  its  maintainers.  Further,  with  Ibn 
Hazm,  he  agreed  in  rejecting  taqlid.  There  was  only 
one  truth,  and  it  was  man's  duty  to  find  it  for  him- 
self by  going  to  the  original  sources. 


A  ZAHIRITE  IMAMITE  247 

This  is  the  genuine  Zahirite  doctrine  which  utterly 
rejects  all  comity  with  the  four  other  legal  rites  ;  but 
Ibn  Tumart,  as  Mahcli,  added  another  element.     It  is 
based  on  a  very  simple  Imamite  philosophy  of  his- 
tory.    There  has  always  been  an  Imam  in  the  world, 
a  divinely  appointed  leader,  guarded  by  isma,  protec- 
tion against  error.     The  first  four  Khalifas  were  of 
such  divine  appointment ;  thereafter  came  usurpers 
and  oppressors.     Theirs  was  the  reign  of  wickedness 
and  lies  in  the  earth.     Now  he,  the  Mahdi,  was  come 
of  the  blood  of  the  Prophet  and  bearing  plainly  all 
the  necessary,  accrediting  signs  to   overcome  these 
tyrants  and  anti-Christs.     He  thus  was  an  Imamite, 
but  stood  quite  apart  from  the  welter  of  conflicting 
Shi'ite  sects — the  Seveners,  Twelvers,  Zaydites  and 
the  rest — as  far  as  do  the  present  Sharifs  of  Morocco 
with  their  Alid-Sunnite  position.     The  Mahdi,  it  is 
to  be  remembered,  is   awaited   by   Sunnites   as   by 
Shi'ites,  and  is  guarded  against  error  as  much  as  an 
Imam,  since  he  partakes  of  the  general  isma  which 
in  divine  things  belongs  to  prophets.     Such  a  leader, 
then,  could  claim  from  the  people  absolute  obedience 
and   credence.      His   word   must   be   for  them   the 
source  of  truth.     There  was,  therefore,  no  longer  any 
need  of  analogy  (qiyas)  as  a  source,  and  we  accord- 
ingly find  that  Ibn  Tumart  rejected  it  in  all  but  legal 
matters  and  there  surrounded  it  with  restrictions. 
Analogical  argument  in  things  theological  was  for- 
bidden. 

But  where  he  absolutely  parted  company  from 
the  Ash'arites  was  with  regard  to  the  qualities  of 
God.      In  that,  too,   he   followed  the  view  of  Ibn 


248  THEOLOGY 

Hazm  sketched  above.  We  must  take  the  Qiir'anic 
expressions  as  names  and  not  as  indicating  attributes 
to  us.  It  is  true  that  his  creed  shows  signs  of  a  phil- 
osophical width  lacking  in  Ibn  Hazm.  Like  the 
Mu'tazilites,  e.g.  Abu  Hudhayl,  he  defines  largely  by 
negations.  God  is  not  this  ;  is  not  affected  by  that. 
It  is  even  phrased  so  as  to  be  capable  of  a  pantheistic 
explanation,  and  we  find  that  Ibn  Rushd  wrote  a 
commentary  on  it.  But  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
Ibn  Tumart  was  himself  a  pantheist.  All  phases  of 
Islam,  as  we  have  seen,  ran  toward  that ;  and  here 
there  is  only  a  little  indiscretion  in  the  wording. 
But  it  may  easily  have  been  that  he  had  besides, 
like  the  Fatimids,  a  secret  teaching  or  exposition  of 
those  simpler  declarations  which  were  intended  for 
the  mass  of  the  people.  Among  his  successors  dis- 
tinct traces  of  such  a  thing  appear ;  both  Aristotelian 
philosophers  and  advanced  Sufis  are  connected  with 
the  Muwahhid  movement.  That,  however,  belongs 
to  the  sequel. 

The  success  of  Ibn  Tumart,  if  halting  at  first,  was 
eventually  complete.  As  a  simple  lawyer  who  felt 
called  upon  to  protest — as,  indeed,  are  all  good  Mus- 
lims in  virtue  of  a  tradition  from  Muhammad — 
against  the  abuses  of  the  time,  he  accomplished  com- 
paratively little.  As  Mahdi,  he  and  his  supporter 
and  successor,  Abd  al-Mu'min,  swept  the  country. 
For  his  movement  was  not  merel}^  Imamite  and  Mus- 
lim, but  an  expression  as  well  of  Berber  nationalism. 
Here  was  a  man,  sprung  from  their  midst,  of  their 
own  stock  and  tongue,  who,  as  Prophet  of  God,  called 
them  to  arms.     They  obeyed   his  call,  worshijoped 


SYNCRETISM   OF   IBN   TUMART  249 

liim  and  fought  for  liim.  He  translated  the  Quran 
for  them  into  Berber ;  the  call  to  prayers  was  given 
in  Berber ;  functionaries  of  the  church  had  to  know 
Berber;  his  own  theological  writings  circulated  in 
Berber  as  well  as  in  Arabic.  As  Persia  took  Islam 
and  moulded  it  to  suit  herself,  so  now  did  the  Berber 
tribes.  And  a  strange  jumble  they  made  of  it.  With 
them,  the  Zahirite  system  of  canon  law,  rejected  by 
all  other  Muslim  peoples,  enjoyed  its  one  brief  period 
of  power  and  glory.  Shi'ite  legends  and  supersti- 
tions mingled  with  philosophical  free  thought.  The 
book  of  mystery,  al-Jafr,  written  by  Ali,  and  contain- 
ing the  history  of  the  world  to  the  end  of  time,  w^as 
said  to  have  passed  from  the  custody  of  al-Ghazzali 
at  his  death  to  the  hands  of  the  Mahdi  and  was  by 
him  committed  to  his  successors.  If  only  in  view  of 
the  syncretism  practised  by  both,  it  was  fitting  that 
al-Ghazzali  and  Ibn  Tumart  should  be  brought  closely 
together.  Yet  it  is  hard  to  explain  the  persistence 
with  which  the  great  Ash'arite  is  made  the  teacher 
and  guide  of  the  semi-Zahirite.  There  must  have 
been  something,  now  obscure  to  us,  in  their  respective 
systems  which  suggested  to  contemporaries  such  in- 
timate connection. 

The  rule  of  the  Muwahhids  lasted  until  667,  nearly 
one  hundred  years,  and  involved  in  its  circle  of  influ- 
ence many  weighty  personalities.  With  some  of 
these  we  will  now  deal  shortly. 

It  has  been  told  above  how  narrow  in  general  were 
the  intellectual  interests  of  the  West.  Canon  law% 
poetry,  history,  geography  were  eagerly  pursued,  but 
little  of  original  value  was  produced.      Originality 


250  THEOLOGY 

and  the  breaking  of  ground  in  new  fields  were  under 
a  ban.  Subtiltj  of  thought  and  hixury  of  life  took 
their  place.  Above  all,  and  naturally,  this  applied 
to  philosophy.  And  so  it  comes  that  the  first  phil- 
osophic name  in  the  Muslim  West  is  that  of  Abu 
Bakr  ibn  Bajja,  for  mediaeval  Europe  Avenpaoe,  who 
died  comparatively  young  in  533.  For  him,  as  for 
all,  and  still  more  in  the  West  than  in  the  East,  the 
problem  of  the  philosopher  was  how  to  gain  and 
maintain  a  tenable  position  in  a  world  composed 
mostly  of  the  philosophically  ignorant  and  the  relig- 
iously fanatical.  This  problem  had  two  sides,  internal 
and  external.  The  inner  and  the  nobler  one  was  how 
such  a  mind  could  in  its  loneliness  rise  to  its  highest 
level  and  purify  itself  to  the  point  of  knowing  things 
as  they  really  are  and  so  reach  that  eternal  life  in 
which  the  individual  spirit  loses  itself  in  the  Active 
Intellect  {vov<i  iron^riKO'^,  al-aql  al-fa'^al)  which  is 
above  all  and  behind  all.  The  other,  and  baser,  was 
how  to  so  present  his  views  and  adapt  his  life  that 
the  life  and  the  views  might  be  possible  in  a  Muslim 
community. 

Ibn  Bajja  was  a  close  disciple  of  al-Farabi,  who  is 
to  be  regarded  as  the  spiritual  father  of  the  later 
Arabic  philosophy;  Ibn  Siua  practically  falls  out. 
In  logic,  physics,  and  metaphysics  he  followed  al- 
Farabi  closely.  But  we  can  see  h^w  the  times  have 
moved  and  the  philosophies  with  them.  The  essen- 
tial differences  have  appeared  and  Ibn  Bajja  can  no 
longer,  with  a  good  conscience,  appear  as  a  pious 
Muslim.  The  Sufi  strain  also  is  much  weaker.  The 
greatest  joy  and  the  closest  truth  are  to  be  found  in 


IBN   BAJJA  251 

tliouglit,  and  not  in  the  sensuous  ecstasies  of  the 
mystic.  The  intellect  is  the  highest  element  in  man's 
being,  but  is  only  immortal  as  it  joins  itself  to  the 
one  Active  Intellect,  which  is  all  that  is  left  of  God. 
Here  we  have  the  beginning  of  the  doctrine  which, 
later,  under  the  name  of  Averroism  and  pampsychism 
ran  like  wild-fire  through  the  schools  of  Europe. 
Further,  only  by  the  constant  exercise  of  its  own 
functions  can  the  intellect  of  man  be  thus  raised.  He 
must  live  rationally  at  all  points ;  be  able  to  give  a 
reason  for  every  action.  This  may  compel  him  to 
live  in  solitude ;  the  world  is.  so  irrational  and  will 
not  suffer  reason.  Or  some  of  the  disciples  of  reason 
may  draw  together  and  form  a  community  where  they 
may  live  the  calm  life  of  nature  and  of  the  pursuit  of 
knowledge  and  self-development.  So  they  will  be  at 
one  with  nature  and  the  eternal,  and  far  removed 
from  the  frenzied  life  of  the  multitude  with  its  lower 
aims  and  conceptions.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  the  iron 
of  a  fight  against  overwhelming  odds  had  entered  this 
soul.  Only  the  friendship  of  some  of  the  Murabit 
princes  saved  him ;  but  he  died  in  the  end,  says  a 
story,  by  poison. 

With  the  next  names  we  find  ourselves  at  a  Mu- 
wahhid  court,  and  there  the  atmosphere  has  changed. 
It  is  evident  that,  whatever  might  be  the  temper  of 
the  people,  the  chiefs  of  the  Muwahhids  viewed  phi- 
losophy with  no  disfavor.  Their  problem,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Fatimids,  seems  rather  to  have  been  how 
much  the  people  might  be  taught  with  safety.  Their 
solution  of  the  problem — here  we  proceed  on  conject- 
ure, but  the  basis  is  tolerably  sound — was  that  the  bulk 


252  THEOLOGY 

of  the  people  should  be  taught  nothing  but  the  literal 
sense  of  the  Qur'an,  metaphors,  anthropomorphisms 
and  all ;  that  the  educated  lay  public,  which  had  al- 
ready some  inkling  of  the  facts,  should  be  assui^ed 
that  there  was  really  no  difference  between  philosophy 
and  theology — that  they  were  two  phases  of  one  truth  ; 
and  that  the  philosophers  should  have  a  free  hand 
to  go  on  their  own  way,  always  provided  that  their 
speculations  did  not  spread  beyond  their  own  circle 
and  agitate  the  minds  of  the  commonalty.  It  was  a 
beautiful  scheme,  but  like  all  systems  of  obscurantism 
it  did  not  work.  On  the  one  hand,  the  people  re- 
fused to  be  blindfolded,  and,  on  the  other,  philosophy 
died  out  of  inanition. 

In  accordance  with  this,  we  find  the  Muwalihid 
chiefs  installing  the  Zahirite  JiqJi  as  the  official  system 
and  sternly  stopping  all  speculative  discussing  cither 
of  canon  law  or  of  theology.  "  The  Word  so  stands 
w^ritten  ;  take  it  or  the  sw^ord,"  is  the  significant  utter- 
ance which  has  come  to  us  from  Abu  Ya'qub  (reg. 
558-580),  son  of  Abd  al-Mu'min.  The  same  continued 
under  his  son  Abu  Yusuf  al-Mansur  (reg.  580-595), 
who  added  a  not  very  carefully  concealed  contempt 
for  the  Mahdiship  of  Ibn  Tumart.  All  such  things 
were  ridiculous  in  his  philosophic  eyes. 

Under  these  men  and  in  adjustment  with  their 
system  lived  and  worked  Ibn  Tufayl  and  Ibn  Bushd, 
the  last  of  the  great  Aristotelians.  Ibn  Tufayl  was 
wazir  and  physician  to  Abu  Ya'qub  and  died  a  year 
after  him,  in  531.  His  was  a  calm,  contemplative 
life,  secluded  in  j)rincely  libraries.  But  his  objects 
were  the  same  as  those  of  Ibn  Bajja.     He  has  evi- 


IBN   TUFAYL  253 

dently  no  liope  that  tlie  great  body  of  the  people  can 
ever  be  brought  to  the  truth.  A  religion,  sensuous 
and  sensual  alike,  is  needed  to  restrain  the  wild  beast 
in  man,  and  the  masses  should  be  left  to  the  guidance 
of  that  religion.  For  a  philosopher  to  seek  to  teach 
them  better  is  to  expose  himself  to  peril  and  them  to 
the  loss  of  that  little  which  they  have.  But  in  his 
methods,  on  the  other  hand,Ibn  Tufayl  is  essentially 
at  one  with  al-Ghazzali.  He  is  a  mystic  who  seeks 
in  Sufi  exercises,  in  the  constant  purifying  of  mind 
and  body  and  in  the  unwearying  search  for  the  one 
unity  in  the  individual  multiplicity  around  him,  to 
find  a  way  to  lose  his  self  in  that  eternal  and  one 
spirit  which  for  him  is  the  divine.  So  at  last  he 
comes  to  ecstasy  and  reaches  those  things  which  eye 
hath  not  seen  nor  ear  heard.  The  only  difference  be- 
tween him  and  al-Ghazzali  is  that  al-Ghazzali  was  a 
theologian  and  saw  in  his  ecstasy  Allah  upon  His 
throne  and  around  Him  the  things  of  the  heavens,  as 
set  forth  in  the  Qur'an,  while  Ibn  Tufayl  was  a  phi- 
losopher, of  neo-Platonic  +  Aristotelian  stamp,  and 
saw  in  his  ecstasy  the  Active  Intellect  and  Its  chain 
of  causes  reaching  down  to  man  and  back  to  Itself. 

The  book  bv  which  his  name  has  lived,  and  which 
has  had  strange  haps,  is  the  romance  of  Hayy  ibn 
Yaqzan,  "  The  Living  One,  Son  of  the  Waking  One." 
In  it  he  conceives  two  islands,  the  one  inhabited  and 
the  other  not.  On  the  inhabited  island  we  have  con- 
ventional people  living  conventional  lives,  and  re- 
strained by  a  conventional  religion  of  rewards  and 
punishments.  Two  men  there,  Salaman  and  Asal, 
have  raised  themselves  to  a  higher  level  of  self-rule. 


254  THEOLOGY 

Salaman  adapts  himself  externally  to  the  popular  re- 
ligion and  rules  the  people ;  Asal,  seeking  to  perfect 
himself  still  further  in  solitude,  goes  to  the  other 
island.  But  there  he  finds  a  man,  Hayy  ibn  Yaqzan, 
who  has  lived  alone  from  infancy  and  has  gradually, 
by  the  innate  and  uncorrupted  powers  of  the  mind, 
developed  himself  to  the  highest  philosophic  level 
and  reached  the  Vision  of  the  Divine.  He  has  passed 
through  all  the  stages  of  knowledge  until  the  universe 
lies  clear  before  him,  and  now  he  finds  that  his  phi- 
losophy thus  reached,  without  prophet  or  revelation, 
and  the  purified  religion  of  Asal  are  one  and  the 
same.  The  story  told  by  Asal  of  the  people  of  the 
other  island  sitting  in  darkness  stirs  his  soul  and  he 
goes  forth  to  them  as  a  missionary.  But  he  soon 
learns  that  the  method  of  Muhammad  was  the  true 
one  for  the  great  masses,  and  that  only  by  sensuous 
allegory  and  concrete  things  could  they  be  reached 
and  held.  He  retires  to  his  island  again  to  live  the 
solitary  life. 

The  bearing  of  this  on  the  system  of  the  Muwali- 
hids  cannot  be  mistaken.  If  it  is  a  criticism  of  the 
finality  of  historical  revelation,  it  is  also  a  defence  of 
the  attitude  of  the  Muwahhids  toward  both  people 
and  philosophers.  By  the  favor  of  Abu  Ya'qub,  Ibn 
Tufayl  had  practically  been  able  to  live  on  an  island 
and  develop  himself  by  study.  So,  too,  Abu  Ya'qub 
might  stand  for  the  enlightened  but  practical  Sala- 
man. Yet  the  meaning  evidently  is  that  between 
them  they  failed  and  must  fail.  There  could  only  be  a 
solitary  philosopher  here  and  there,  and  happy  for 
him  if  he  found  a  princely  patron.     The  people  which 


IBN   RUSHD  255 

knew  not  the  truth  were  accursed.  Perhaps,  rather, 
they  were  children  and  had  to  be  humored  and 
guided  as  such  in  an  endless  childhood. 

It  is  evident  that  such  a  solitary  possessor  of  truth 
had  two  courses  open  to  him.  He  could  either  busy 
himself  in  his  studies  and  exercises,  as  had  done  Ibn 
Bajja  and  Ibn  Tufayl,  or  he  could  boldly  enter  public 
life  and  trust  to  his  dialectic  ingenuity  and  resource — 
perhaps,  also,  to  his  plasticity  of  conscience — to 
carry  him  past  all  whispers  of  heresy  and  unbelief. 
The  latter  course  was  chosen  by  Ibn  Rushd.  He  was 
born  at  Cordova,  in  520,  of  a  family  of  jurists  and 
there  studied  law.  From  his  legal  studies  only  a 
book  on  the  law  of  inheritance  has  reached  us,  and  it, 
though  frequently  commented  on,  has  never  been 
printed.  In  548  he  was  presented  to  Abu  Ya'qub 
by  Ibn  Tufayl  and  encouraged  by  him  in  the  study 
of  philosophy.  In  it  his  greatest  work  was  done. 
In  spite  of  the  shreds  and  patches  of  neo-Platonism 
which  clung  to  him,  he  was  the  greatest  mediaeval 
commentator  on  Aristotle.  It  is  only  part  of  the 
eternal  puzzle  of  the  Muslim  mind  that  the  utility  of 
Greek  for  a  student  of  Aristotle  seems  never  to  have 
struck  him.  Thereafter  he  acted  as  judge  in  differ- 
ent places  in  Spain  and  was  court  physician  for  a 
short  time  in  578  to  Abu  Ya'qub.  In  575  he  had 
written  his  tractates,  to  which  we  shall  come  imme- 
diately, mediating  between  philosophy  and  theology. 
Toward  the  end  of  his  life  he  was  condemned  b}^ 
Abu  Yusuf  al-Mansur  for  heresy  and  banished  from 
Cordova.  This  was  in  all  likelihood  atnickling  on  the 
part  of  al-Mansur  to  the  religious  prejudices  of  the 


256  THEOLOGY 

people  of  Spain,  who  were  probably  of  stiifer  ortho- 
doxy than  the  Berbers.  He  was  in  Spain,  at  Cor- 
dova, at  the  time,  and  was  engaged  in  carrying  on  a 
religious  war  with  the  Christians.  On  his  return  to 
Morocco  the  decree  of  exile  was  recalled  and  Ibn 
Rushd  restored  to  favor.  We  find  him  again  at  the 
court  in  Morocco,  and  he  di^d  there  in  595. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  enter  upon  Ibn  Rushd's 
philosophical  system.  He  was  a  thorough-going  Aris- 
totelian, as  he  knew  Aristotle.  That  was  probably 
much  better  than  any  of  his  predecessors  ;  but  even 
he  had  not  got  clear  from  the  fatal  influence  of  Plo- 
tinus.  Above  all,  he  is  essentially  a  theologian  just 
as  much  as  they.  In  Aristotle  there  had  been  given 
what  was  to  all  intents  a  philosophical  revelation. 
Only  in  the  knowledge  and  acceptance  of  it  could 
truth  and  life  be  found.  And  some  must  reach  it ; 
one  at  least  there  must  always  be.  If  a  thing  is  not 
seen  by  someone  it  has  existed  in  vain ;  which  is 
impossible.  If  someone  at  least  does  not  know  the 
truth,  it  also  has  existed  in  vain,  which  is  still  more 
impossible.  That  is  Ibn  Rushd's  way  of  saying  that 
the  esse  is  the  percipi  and  that  there  must  be  a  per- 
ceiver.  And  he  has  unlimited  faith  in  his  means  of 
reaching  that  Truth — only  by  such  capitalization  can 
we  express  his  theologic  attitude.  The  logic  of  Aris- 
totle is  infallible  and  can  break  through  to  the  su- 
preme good  itself.  Ecstasy  and  contemplation  play 
no  part  with  him  ;  there  he  separates  from  Ibn  Tu- 
fayl.  Such  intercourse  with  the  Active  Intellect  may 
exist ;  but  it  is  too  rare  to  be  taken  into  account. 
Obviously,  Ibn  Rushd  himself,  who  to  himself  was 


ATTACK    ON   AL-GHAZZALI  257 

the  percipient  of  truth  for  his  age,  had  never  reached 
that  perception.  Solitary  meditation  he  cannot  away 
with  ;  for  him  the  market-place  and  contact  with 
men  ;  there  he  parts  with  Ibn  Bajja.  In  truth,  he  is 
nearer  to  the  life  in  life  of  Ibn  Sina,  and  that,  per- 
haps, explains  his  constant  attacks  on  the  Persian 
hon  vivant. 

All  his  predecessors  he  joys  in  correcting,  but  his 
especial  hete  noire  is  al-Gliazzali.  With  him  it  is  war  on 
life  or  death.  He  has  two  good  causes.  One  is  al-Ghaz- 
zali's  "  Destruction  of  the  Philosophers  ;  "  of  it,  Ibn 
lluslid,  in  his  turn,  writes  a  "  Destruction."  This  is 
a  clever,  incisive  criticism,  luminous  with  logical  ex- 
actitude, yet  missing  al-Ghazzali's  vital  earnestness 
and  incapable  of  reaching  his  originality.  But  al- 
Ghazzali  had  not  only  attacked  the  philosophers; 
he  had  also  spread  the  knowledge  of  their  teachings 
and  reasonings,  and  had  said  that  there  was  nothing 
esoteric  and  impossible  of  grasp  in  them  for  the 
ordinary  mind.  He  had  thus  assailed  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  the  Muwahhid  system.  Against 
this,  Ibn  Rushd  wrote  the  tractates  spoken  of  above. 
They  were  evidently  addressed  to  the  educated  laity ; 
not  to  the  ignorant  multitude,  but  to  those  who  had 
already  read  such  books  as  those  of  al-Ghazzali  and 
been  affected  by  them,  yet  had  not  studied  philosophy 
at  first  hand.  That  they  were  not  intended  for  such 
special  students  is  evident  from  the  elaborate  care 
that  is  taken  in  them  to  conceal,  or,  if  that  were  not 
possible,  to  put  a  good  face  upon  obnoxious  doc- 
trines. Thus,  his  philosophy  left  no  place  in  reality 
for  a  system  of  rewards  and  punishments  or  even  for 


258  THEOLOGY 

any  individual  existence  of  the  soul  after  death,  for  a 
creation  of  the  material  world,  or  for  a  providence  in 
the  direct  working  of  the  supreme  being  on  earth. 
But  all  these  points  are  involved  or  glossed  over  in 
these  tractates. 

Further,  it  is  plain  that  their  object  was  to  bring 
about  a  reform  of  religion  in  itself,  and  also  of  the 
attitude  of  theologians  to  students  of  philosophy.  In 
them  he  sums  up  his  own  position  under  four  heads : 
Firsts  that  philosophy  agrees  with  religion  and  that 
religion  recommends  philosophy.  Here,  he  is  fight- 
ing for  his  life.  Religion  is  true,  a  revelation  from 
God ;  and  philosophy  is  true,  the  results  reached  by 
the  human  mind ;  these  two  truths  cannot  contradict 
each  other.  Again,  men  are  frequently  exhorted  in 
the  Qur'an  to  reflect,  to  consider,  to  speculate  about 
things ;  that  means  the  use  of  the  intelligence,  which 
follows  certain  laws,  long  ago  traced  and  Avorked  out 
by  the  ancients.  We  must,  therefore,  study  their 
works  and  proceed  further  on  the  same  course  our- 
selves, i.e.,  we  must  study  philosophy. 

Second,  there  are  two  things  in  religion,  literal 
meaning  and  interpretation.  If  we  find  anything  in 
the  Qur'an  which  seems  externally  to  contradict  the 
results  of  philosophy,  we  may  be  quite  sure  that 
there  is  something  under  the  surface.  We  must  look 
for  some  possible  interpretation  of  the  passage,  some 
inner  meaning ;  and  we  shall  certainly  find  it. 

Tliird,  the  literal  meaning  is  the  duty  of  the  mul- 
titude, and  interpretation  the  duty  of  scholars.  Those 
who  are  not  capable  of  philosophical  reasoning  must 
hold  the  literal  truth  of  the  difl'erent  statements  in 


THE   MULTIFORM   TRUTH  259 

the  Qur'an.  The  imagery  must  be  believed  by  them 
exactly  as  it  stands,  except  where  it  is  absolutely  evi- 
dent that  we  have  only  an  image.  On  the  other  hand, 
philosophers  must  be  given  the  liberty  of  interpret- 
ing as  they  choose.  If  they  find  it  necessary,  from 
some  philosophical  necessit}^  to  adopt  an  allegorical 
interpretation  of  any  passage  or  to  find  in  it  a  meta- 
phor, that  liberty  must  be  open  to  them.  There  must 
be  no  laying  down  of  dogmas  by  the  church  as  to 
what  may  be  interpreted  and  what  may  not.  In  Ibn 
Eushd's  opinion,  the  orthodox  theologians  sometimes 
interpreted  when  they  should  have  kept  by  the  letter, 
and  sometimes  took  literally  passages  in  which  they 
should  have  found  imagery.  He  did  not  accuse  them 
of  heresy  for  this,  and  they  should  grant  him  the 
same  libert^^ 

Fourth,  those  who  know  are  not  to  be  allowed  to 
communicate  interpretations  to  the  multitude.  So 
Ali  said,  "Speak  to  the  people  of  that  which  they 
understand ;  would  ye  that  they  give  the  lie  to  God 
and  His  messenger?"  Ibn  Kushd  considered  that 
belief  was  reached  by  three  different  classes  of  people 
in  three  different  ways.  The  many  believe  because 
of  rhetorical  syllogisms  {khifabiya),  i.e.,  those  whose 
premises  consist  of  the  statements  of  a  religious 
teacher  {maqhulat),  or  are  presumptions  {maznunat). 
Others  believe  because  of  controversial  syllogisms 
(jadliya),  which  are  based  on  principles  {mashhurat) 
or  admissions  {musallamat).  All  these  premises  be- 
long to  the  class  of  propositions  which  are  not  abso- 
lutely certain.  The  third  class,  and  by  far  the 
smaller,  consists  of  the  people  of  demonstration  (Jbur- 


260  THEOLOGY 

lian).  Their  belief  is  based  upon  syllogisms  com- 
posed of  propositions  which  are  certain.  These 
consist  of  axioms  {aivicaliyat)  and  five  other  classes 
of  certainties.  Each  of  these  three  classes  of  people 
has  to  be  treated  in  the  way  that  suits  its  mental 
character.  It  is  wrong  to  put  demonstration  or  con- 
troversy before  those  who  can  understand  only  rhe- 
torical reasoning.  It  destroj^s  their  faith  and  gives 
them  nothing  to  take  its  place.  The  case  is  similar 
with  those  who  can  only  reach  controversial  reason- 
ing but  cannot  attain  unto  demonstration.  Thus  Ibn 
Rushd  would  have  the  faith  of  the  multitude  care- 
fully screened  from  all  contact  with  the  teachings  of 
philosophers.  Such  books  should  not  be  allowed  to 
go  into  general  circulation,  and  if  necessary,  the  civil 
authorities  should  step  in  to  prevent  it.  If  these 
principles  were  accepted  and  followed,  a  return 
might  be  looked  for  of  the  golden  age  of  Islam,  when 
there  was  no  theological  controversy  and  men  be- 
lieved sincerely  and  earnestly. 

On  this  last  paragraph  it  is  worth  noticing  that  its 
threefold  distinction  is  "  conveyed "  by  Ibn  Rushd 
from  a  little  book  belonging  to  al-Ghazzali's  later 
life,  after  he  had  turned  to  the  study  of  tradition, 
Iljam  al-Aioamm  an  ilm  al-halam,  "  The  reining  in 
of  the  commonalty  from  the  science  of  kalam." 

Such  was,  practically,  the  end  of  the  Muslim  Aris- 
totelians. Some  flickers  of  philosophic  study  doubt- 
less remained.  So  we  find  a  certain  Abu-l-Hajjaj  ibn 
Tumlus  (d.  620)  writing  on  Aristotle's  "Analytics," 
and  the  tractates  of  Ibn  Eushd  described  above  were 
copied  at  Almeria  in  724.    But  the  fate  of  all  Muslim 


IBN   AKABI  261 

speculation  fell,  and  this  school  went  out  in  Sufiism. 
It  was  not  Ibn  Eushd  that  triumphed  but  Ibn  Tuf  ayl, 
and  that  side  of  Ibn  Tuf  ayl  which  was  akin  to  al- 
Ghazzali.  From  this  point  on,  the  thinkers  and 
writers  of  Islam  become  mystics  more  and  more  over- 
whelmingly. Dogmatic  theology  itself  falls  behind, 
and  of  philosophical  disciplines  only  formal  logic 
and  a  metaphysics  of  the  straitest  scholastic  type 
are  left.  Philosophy  becomes  the  handmaid  of  the- 
ology, and  a  very  mechanical  handmaid  at  that.  It 
is  only  in  the  schools  of  the  Sufis  that  we  find  real 
development  and  promise  of  life.  The  future  lay 
with  them,  however  dubious  it  may  seem  to  us  that  a 
future  in  such  charge  must  be. 

The  greatest  Sufi  in  the  Arabic-speaking  world  was 
undoubtedly  Muhyi  ad-Din  ibn  Arabi.  He  was  born 
in  Murcia  in  560,  studied  hadith  and  Jiqh  at  Seville, 
and  in  598  set  out  to  travel  in  the  East.  He  wan- 
dered through  the  Hijaz,  Mesopotamia  and  Asia 
Minor,  and  died  at  Damascus  in  638,  leaving  behind 
him  an  enormous  mass  of  writings,  at  least  150  of 
which  have  come  down  to  us.  Why  he  left  Spain  is 
unknown ;  it  is  plain  that  he  was  under  the  influence 
of  the  Muwahhid  movement.  He  was  a  Zahirite  in 
law ;  rejected  analogy,  opinion,  and  taqlid^  but  ad- 
mitted agreement.  His  attachment  to  the  opinions 
of  Ibn  Hazm  especially  was  very  strong.  He  edited 
some  of  that  scholar's  works,  and  was  only  prevented 
by  his  objections  to  taqlid  from  being  a  formal  Hazm- 
ite.  But  with  all  that  literalness  in  Jiqli,  his  mysti- 
cism in  theology  was  of  the  most  rampant  and  luxu- 
rious description.     Between  the  two  sides,  it  is  true, 


262  THEOLOGY 

there  existed  a  connection  of  a  kind.  He  had  no 
need  for  analogy  or  opinion  or  for  any  of  the  work- 
ings of  the  vain  human  intelligence  so  long  as  the 
divine  light  was  flooding  his  soul  and  he  saw  the 
things  of  the  heavens  with  plain  vision.  So  his 
books  are  a  strange  jumble  of  theosophy  and  meta- 
physical paradoxes,  all  much  like  the  theosophy  of 
our  own  day.  He  evidently  took  the  system  of  the 
mutakallims  and  played  with  it  by  means  of  formal 
logic  and  a  lively  imagination.  To  what  extent  he 
was  sincere  in  his  claim  of  heavenly  illuminings  and 
mysterious  powers  it  would  be  hard  to  say.  The 
oriental  mystic  has  little  difiiculty  in  deceiving  him- 
self. His  opinions — so  far  as  we  can  know  them — 
may  be  briefly  sketched  as  follows :  The  being  of 
all  things  is  God  :  there  is  nothing  except  Him.  All 
things  are  an  essential  unity  ;  every  part  of  the  Avorld 
is  the  whole  world.  So  man  is  a  unity  in  essence 
but  a  multiplicity  in  individuals.  His  anthropology 
was  an  advance  upon  that  of  al-Ghazzali  toward  a 
more  unflinching  pantheism.  He  has  the  same  view 
that  the  soul  of  man  is  a  spiritual  substance  different 
from  everything  else  and  proceeding  from  God.  But 
he  obliterates  the  difference  of  God  and  makes  souls 
practically  emanations.  At  death  these  return  into 
God  who  sent  them  forth.  All  religions  to  Ibn 
Arabi  were  practically  indifferent ;  in  them  all  the 
divine  was  working  and  was  worshipped.  Yet  Islam 
is  the  more  advantageous  and  Sufiism  is  its  true  phi- 
losophy. Further,  man  has  no  free-will ;  he  is  con- 
strained by  the  will  of  God,  Avhicli  is  really  all  that 
exists.     Nor  is  there   any   real   difference   between 


IBN    SAB 'IN  263 

good  and  evil ;  the  essential  unity  of  all  tilings  makes 
such  a  division  impossible. 

The  last  of  the  Muwahhid  circle  with  whom  we 
need  deal — and,  perhaps,  absolutely  the  last — is  Abd 
al-Haqq  ibn  Sab'in.     He  was  as  much  a  mystic  as 
Ibn  Arabi,  but  was  apparently  more  deeply  read  in 
philosophy   and  did  not  cast  his  conceptions  in  so 
theological  and  Qur  anic  a  mould.     He,  too,  was  born 
in   Mui-cia   about   613,    and   must   very   early   have 
founded   a   school    of   his   own,    gathered    disciples 
round  him  and  established  a  wide  reputation.    High 
skill  in  alchemy,  astrology,  and  magic  is  ascribed  to 
him,  which  probably  means  that  he  claimed  to  be  a 
wali,  a  friend  of  God,  gifted  with  miraculous  powers. 
He  is  accused  of  posing  as  a  prophet,  although  in 
orthodox  Islam  Muhammad  is  the  last  and  the  seal  of 
the  prophets      But  against  this,  it  may  be  said  that 
he  had  no  need  of  the  actual  title,  "  prophet "  ;  many 
mystics  held — heretically,  it  is  true— that  the  loali 
stood  higher  than  the  prophet,  nahi  or  rasul.     He 
had  evidently  besides  this  a  more  solid  reputation 
in  philosophy,  as  is  shown  by  his  correspondence 
with  Frederick  II,  the  great  Hohenstaufen  (d.  1250 
A.D.).     The  story  is  told  on  the  Muslim  side  only, 
but  has   vraisemhlance   and    seems   to   be   tolerably 
authentic.     According    to   it,    Frederick   addressed 
certain    questions    in  philosophy — on    the    eternity 
of  the  world,  the   nature   of   the  soul,  the  number 
and  nature  of  the  categories,  etc.— to  different  Muslim 
princes,  begging    that  they  would  submit  them  to 
their  learned  men.     So  the  questions  came  to   ar- 
Bashid,  the  Muwahhid  (reg.  630-640J,  addressed  to 


264  THEOLOGY 

Ibn  Sab'in  as  a  scholar  whose  reputation  had  reached 
even  the  Sicilian  court.  Ar-Kashid  passed  them  on ; 
Ibn  Sab'in  accepted  the  commission  with  a  smile — ■ 
this  is  the  Muslim  account — and  triumphantly  and 
contemptuously  expounded  the  difficulties  of  the 
Christian  monarch  and  student.  In  his  replies  he 
certainly  disjDlays  a  very  complete  and  exact  knowl- 
edge of  the  Aristotelian  and  neo-Platonic  systems, 
and  is  far  less  a  blind  follower  of  Aristotle  than  is 
Ibn  Kuslid.  But  his  schoolmasterly  tone  is  most 
unpleasant,  and  we  discover  in  the  end  that  all  this 
is  a  mere  preliminary  discipline,  leading  in  itself  to 
agnosticism  and  a  recognition  that  there  is  nothing 
but  vanity  in  this  world,  and  that  only  in  the  Vision 
of  the  Sufi  can  certainty  and  peace  be  found.  So  we 
have  again  the  circle  through  which  al-Glia2zali  went. 
As  distinguished  from  Ibn  Kushd,  the  prophet,  with 
Ibn  Sab'in,  takes  higher  rank  than  the  sage.  Be- 
yond the  current  division  of  the  soul  into  the  vege- 
tative, the  animal  and  the  reasonable,  he  adds  two 
others,  derived  from  the  reasonable,  the  soul  of  wis« 
dom  and  the  soul  of  prophecy.  The  first  of  these  is 
the  soul  of  the  philosopher,  and  the  other  of  the 
prophet ;  and  the  last  is  the  highest.  Of  the  reason- 
able soul  upward,  he  predicates  immortality. 

His  position  otherwise  must  have  been  practically 
the  same  as  that  of  Ibn  Arabi.  Like  him  he  was  a 
Zahirite  in  law  and  a  mystic  in  theology.  "  God  is 
the  reality  of  existing  things,"  he  taught,  and  it  is 
evident  that  he  belonged  to  the  school  of  pantheism 
in  which  God  is  all,  and  separate  things  are  emana- 
tions from  him.     In  life  we  have  flashes  of  recogni- 


END   OF  THE   MUWAHHIDS  265 

tion  of  the  heavenly  realities,  but  only  at  death — 
which  is  our  true  birth — do  we  reach  union  with  the 
eternal,  or,  to  speak  technically,  with  the  Active  Intel- 
lect. 

Apparently  it  was  quite  possible  for  him  to  hold 
these  views  in  public  so  long  as  the  Muwahhids  were 
strong  enough  to  protect  him.  But  their  empire  was 
rapidly  falling  to  pieces  and  the  time  of  freedom  had 
passed.  An  attack  on  him  at  Tunis,  where  the  Haf- 
sids  now  ruled,  drove  him  to  the  East  about  643,  and 
there  he  took  refuge  at — of  all  places — Mecca.  The 
refuge  seems  to  have  been  secure.  He  lived  there 
more  than  twenty  years  amid  a  circle  of  disciples, 
among  whom  was  the  Sharif  himself,  and  died  about 
667.  There  is  a  poorly  authenticated  story  that  he 
died  by  suicide.  The  man  himself,  with  so  many  of 
his  time  and  kind,  must  remain  a  puzzle  to  us.  For 
all  his  haughty  pride  of  learning,  it  is  noted  of  him 
that  his  first  disciples  were  from  among  the  poor. 
His  contemporaries  described  him  as  "a  Sufi  after 
the  manner  of  the  philosophers."  The  last  vestige 
of  the  Muwahhid  empire  passed  away  in  the  year  of 
his  death. 


CHAPTER  yi 

The  rise  and  spread  of  darwish  Fraternities ;  the  survival  and  tradi- 
tion of  the  Hanbalite  doctrine ;  Abd  ar-Razzaq ;  Ibn  Taymiya. 
his  attacks  on  saint-worship  and  on  the  mutakalliras ;  ash- 
Sha'rani  and  his  times ;  the  modern  movements ;  Wahhabism 
and  the  influence  of  al-Ghazzali ;  possibilities  of  the  present 

Our  sources  now  begin  to  grow  more  and  more 
scanty,  and  we  must  hasten  over  long  intervals  of 
time  and  pass  with  little  connection  from  one  name 
to  another.  Preliminary  investigations  are  also  to 
a  great  extent  lacking,  and  it  is  possible  that  the  cen- 
turies which  we  shall  merely  touch  may  have  wit- 
nessed developments  only  less  important  than  those 
with  which  we  have  already  dealt.  But  that  is  not 
probable  ;  for  when,  after  a  long  silence,  the  curtain 
rises  again  for  us  in  the  twelfth  Muslim  century,  we 
shall  find  at  work  only  those  elements  and  conditions 
whose  inception  and  growth  we  have  now  set  forth. 

One  name  in  our  rapid  flight  deserves  mention,  at 
least.  It  is  that  of  Umar  ibn  al-Farid,  the  greatest 
poet  that  Arabic  mysticism  has  produced.  He  was 
born  at  Cairo  in  586,  lived  for  a  time  at  Mecca,  and 
died  at  Cairo  in  632.  He  led  no  new  movement  or 
advance,  but  the  East  still  cherishes  his  memory  and 
his  poems. 

We  have  already  noticed  (p.  177)  the  beginnings  of 

darwish  Fraternities  and  the  founding  of  monasteries 

or  khanqahs.     During  the  period  over  which  we  have 

2C6 


DARWISH   FRATEPwNITIES  267 

just  passed,  these  received  a  great  and  enduring  im- 
petus. The  older  ascetics  and  walis  gathered  round 
them  grouj^s  of  personal  followers  and  their  pupils 
carried  on  their  names.  But  it  was  long,  apparently, 
before  definite  corporations  were  founded  of  fixed 
purpose  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  their  masters. 
One  of  the  earliest  of  these  seems  to  have  been 
the  fraternity  of  Qadirite  darwishes,  founded  by  Abd 
al-Qadir  al- Jilani,  who  died  in  561  at  Baghdad,  where 
pilgrimage  is  still  made  to  his  shrine.  So,  too,  the 
Rifa'ite  Fraternity  was  founded  at  Baghdad  by  Ah- 
mad ar-Eifa'a  in  576.  Another  s  that  of  the  Sha- 
dhilites,  named  after  their  founder,  ash-Shadhili,  who 
died  in  656.  Again  another  is  that  of  the  Badawites, 
whose  founder  was  Ahmad  al-Badawi  (d.  675) ;  his 
shrine  at  Tanta  in  Lower  Egypt  is  still  one  of  the 
most  popular  places  of  pilgrimage.  Again,  the  order 
of  the  Naqshbandite  darwishes  was  founded  by  Mu- 
hammad an-Naqshbandi,  who  died  in  791.  Among 
the  Turks  by  far  the  most  popular  religious  order  is 
that  of  the  Mawlawites,  founded  by  the  great  Persian 
mystical  poet,  Jalal  ad-Din  ar-Rumi  (d.  672),  whose 
Mesnevi  is  read  over  all  Islam.  These  and  very  many 
others,  especially  of  later  date,  are  still  in  existence. 
Others,  once  founded,  have  again  become  extinct. 
Thus,  Ibn  Sab 'in,  though  he  was  surrounded  by  dis- 
ciples who  for  a  time  after  his  death  carried  on  the 
order  of  Sab'inites,  does  not  seem  now  to  have  any 
to  do  him  honor.  The  same  holds  of  a  certain  Adi 
al-Haqqari  who  founded  a  cloister  near  Mawsil  and 
died  about  558.  It  is  significant  that  al-Ghazzali, 
though  he  founded  a  cloister  for  Sufis  at  Tus  and 


268  THEOLOGY 

taught  and  governed  there  himself,  left  no  order  be- 
hind him.  Apparently  in  his  time  the  movement 
toward  continuous  corporations  had  not  yet  begun. 
It  is  true  that  there  are  at  present  in  existence  dar- 
wish  Fraternities  which  claim  to  be  descended  from 
the  celebrated  ascetics  and  tvalis,  Ibrahim  ibn  Adham 
(d.  161),  Sari  as-Saqati  (d.  257)  and  Abu  Yazid  al- 
Bistami  (d.  261),  but  it  may  be  gravely  doubted 
whether  they  can  show  any  sound  pedigree.  The 
legend  of  Shaykh  Ilwan,  who  is  said  to  have  founded 
the  first  order  in  49,  may  be  safely  rejected.  It  is 
significant  that  the  Aivlad  Ilivan,  sons  of  Ilwan,  as 
his  followers  are  called,  form  a  sect  of  the  Rifa'ites. 
Further,  just  as  the  Sufis  have  claimed  for  themselves 
all  the  early  pious  Muslims,  and  especially  the  ten 
to  whom  Muhammad  made  specific  promise  of  Para- 
dise (al-ashara  cd-muhashshara),  so  these  Fraternities 
are  ascribed  in  their  origin  to,  and  put  under  the 
guardianship  of  the  first  Khalifas,  and,  in  Egypt  at 
least,  a  direct  descendant  of  Abu  Bakr  holds  author- 
ity over  all  their  orders. 

In  these  orders  all  are  darwishes,  but  only  those 
gifted  by  God  with  miraculous  powers  are  ivalis. 
Those  of  them  who  are  begging  friars  are  faqirs. 
They  stand  under  an  elaborate  hierarchy  grading  in 
dignity  and  holiness  from  the  Quth,  or  Axis,  who 
wanders,  often  invisible  and  always  unknown  to  the 
world,  through  the  lands  performing  the  duties  of 
his  office,  and  who  has  a  favorite  station  on  the 
roof  of  the  Ka'ba,  through  his  naqihs  or  assistants, 
down  to  the  lowest /ag/'r.  But  the  members  of  these 
orders  are  not   exclusively  faqirs.     All  classes  are 


MYSTICS   V.   TRADITIONALISTS  269 

enrolled  as,  in  a  sense,  lay  adherents.  Certain  trades 
affect  certain  fraternities ;  in  Egypt,  for  example,  the 
fishermen  are  almost  all  Qadirites  and  walk  in  pro- 
cession on  their  festival  day,  carrying  colored  nets  as 
their  banners.  Much  the  same  thing  held,  and  holds, 
of  the  monastic  orders  of  Europe,  but  the  Muslim 
does  not  wait  till  he  is  dying  to  put  on  the  weeds 
of  Ahmad  al-Badawi  or  ash-Sha<Ihili.  Finally,  ref- 
erence may  be  made  again  to  the  last  and  most 
important  of  all  these  orders,  the  militant  Brother- 
hood of  as-Sanusi. 

"\Ye  have  now  returned  to  the  period  of  al-Iji 
and  at-Taftazani,  when  philosophy  definitely  de- 
scended from  the  throne  and  became  the  servant 
and  defender  of  theology.  From  this  time  on,  the 
two  independent  forces  at  work  are  the  unveiling  of 
the  mystic  {kashf)  and  tradition  (naql).  The  only 
place  for  reason  (aql)  now  is  to  prove  the  possibility 
of  a  given  doctrine.  That  done,  its  actual  truth  is 
proven  by  tradition.  These  two  then,  kashf  and 
naql,  hold  the  field,  and  the  history  of  Muslim  theol- 
ogy from  this  point  to  the  present  day  is  the  history  of 
their  conflicts.  The  mystics  are  accused  of  heresy  by 
the  traditionalists.  The  traditionalists  are  accused 
by  the  mystics  of  formalism,  hypocrisy,  and,  above 
all,  of  flat  inability  to  argue  logically.  Both  accusa- 
tions are  certainly  true.  No  fine  fence  on  person- 
ality can  conceal  the  fact  that  Muslim  mysticism  is 
simple  pantheism  of  the  Plotinian  type,  the  individ- 
uals are  emanations  from  the  One.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  formalism  of  the  traditionalists  can  hardly 
be  exaggerated.     They  pass  over  almost  entirely  into 


270  THEOLOGY 

canon  lawyers,  meriting  richly  tlie  fine  sarcasm  ot  al- 
Gliazzali,  who  asked  the  faqilis  of  his  day  what  pos- 
sible value  for  the  next  world  could  lie  in  a  study  of 
the  Quranic  law  of  inheritance  or  the  like.  Tradi- 
tion {Jiadifh),  in  the  exact  sense  of  the  sayings  and 
doings  of  Muhammad,  falls  into  the  background, 
and  Jiqh,  the  systems  built  upon  it  by  the  genera- 
tions of  lawyers,  from  the  four  masters  down,  takes 
its  place.  Again,  the  accusation  of  illogical  reason- 
ing is  also  thoroughly  sound.  The  habit  of  unend- 
ing subdivision  deprived  the  minds  of  the  canonists 
of  all  breadth  of  scope,  and  their  devotion  to  the 
principle  of  acceptance  on  authority  {taqlid)  weak- 
ened their  feeling  for  argument.  It  is  true,  further, 
that  the  mystics,  such  as  they  were,  had  heired  all 
the  philosophy  left  in  Islam,  and  were  thus  become 
the  representatives  of  the  intellectual  life.  They 
had  so  much  of  an  advantage  over  their  more  or- 
thodox opponents.  But  the  intellectual  life  with 
them,  as  with  the  earlier  philosophers,  remained  of 
a  too  subjective  character.  The  fatal  study  of  the 
self,  and  the  self  only — that  tramping  along  the  high 
a  priori  road — and  neglect  of  the  objective  study 
of  the  outside  world  which  ruined  their  forerunners, 
was  their  ruin  as  well.  Outbursts  of  intellectual 
energy  and  revolt  we  may  meet  with  again  and 
again  ;  there  will  be  few  signs  of  that  science  which 
seeks  facts  patiently  in  the  laboratory,  the  observa- 
tory, and  the  dissecting-room. 

Curiously  enough,  there  fall  closely  together  at 
tliis  time  the  death  dates  of  two  men  of  the  most 
opposite  schools.     The  one  was  Ibn  Taymiya,  the 


ABD   APv-KAZZAQ  271 

anthropomorphist  free  lance,  who  died  in  728,  and 
the  other  was  Abd  ar-Razzaq,  the  pantheistic  Sufi, 
who  died  in  730.  Abd  ar-Razzaq  of  Samarqand  and 
Kashan  was  a  close  student  and  follower  of  Ibn 
Arabi.  He  commented  on  his  books  and  defended 
his  orthodoxy.  In  fact,  so  closely  had  Ibn  Arabi 
come  to  be  identified  with  the  Sufi  position  as  a 
whole  that  a  defence  of  him  was  a  favorite  form  in 
which  to  cast  a  defence  of  Sufiism  generally.  But 
Abd  ar-Razzaq  did  not  follow  his  master  absolutely. 
On  the  freedom  of  the  will  especially  he  left  him. 
For  Ibn  Arabi,  the  doctrine  of  the  oneness  of  all 
things  had  involved  fatalism.  Whatever  happens  is 
determined  by  the  nature  of  things,  that  is,  by  the 
nature  of  God.  So  the  individuals  are  bound  by  the 
whole.  Abd  ar-Razzaq  turned  this  round.  His 
pantheism  was  of  the  same  type  as  that  of  Ibn  Arabi ; 
God,  for  him,  was  all.  But  there  is  freedom  of  the 
divine  nature,  he  went  on.  It  must  therefore  exist 
in  man  also,  for  he  is  an  emanation  from  the  divine. 
His  every  act,  it  is  true,  is  predetermined,  in  time,  in 
form,  and  in  place.  But  his  act  is  brought  about  by 
certain  causes,  themselves  predetermined.  These 
are  what  we  would  call  natural  laws  in  things,  natural 
abilities,  aptitudes,  etc.,  in  the  agent ;  finally,  free 
choice  itself.  And  that  free  choice  is  in  man  because 
he  is  of  and  from  God.  Further,  it  is  evident  that 
Abd  ar-Razzaq's  anxiety  is  to  preserve  a  basis  for 
morals.  Among  the  predetermining  causes  he  reck- 
ons the  divine  commands,  warnings,  proofs  in  the 
Qur'an.  The  guidance  of  religion  finds  thus  its  place 
and  the  prophets  their  work.     But  what  of  the  exist- 


272  THEOLOGY 

ence  of  evil  and  the  necessity  of  restraint  in  a  world 
that  has  emanated  from  the  divine?  This  problem 
he  faces  bravely.  Our  world  must  be  the  best  of  all 
possible  worlds  ;  otherwise  God  would  have  made  it 
better.  Difference,  then,  among  men  and  things  be- 
longs to  its  essence  and  necessity.  Next,  justice  must 
consist  in  accepting  these  different  things  and  adapt- 
ing them  to  their  situations.  To  try  to  make  all 
things  and  men  alike  would  be  to  leave  some  out  of 
existence  altogether.  That  would  be  a  great  injus- 
tice. Here,  again,  religion  enters.  Its  object  is  to 
rectify  this  difference  in  qualities  and  gifts.  Men 
are  not  responsible  for  these,  but  they  are  responsible 
if  they  do  not  labor  to  correct  them.  In  the  hereafter 
all  will  be  reabsorbed  into  the  divine  being  and  taste 
such  bliss  as  the  rank  of  each  deserves.  For  those 
who  need  it  there  will  be  a  period  of  purgatorial 
chastisement,  but  that  will  not  be  eternal,  in  slia 
Allah. 

Like  his  predecessors,  Abd  ar-Razzaq  divides  men 
into  classes  according  to  their  insight  into  divine 
things.  The  first  is  of  men  of  the  world,  who  are 
ruled  by  the  flesh  (nafs)  and  who  live  careless  of  all 
religion.  The  second  is  of  men  of  reason  (aql).  They 
through  the  reason  contemplate  God,  but  see  only 
His  external  attributes.  The  third  is  of  men  of  the 
spirit  (rWi)  who,  in  ecstasy,  see  God  face  to  face  in 
His  very  essence,  which  is  the  substrate  of  all  cre- 
ation. 

In  his  cosmogony,  Abd  ar-Razzaq  follows,  of 
course,  the  neo-Platonic  model  and  shows  great  inge- 
nuity in  weaving  into  it  the  crude  and  materialistic 


IBN   TAYMIYA  273 

phrases  and  ideas  of  the  Qur'an.  Like  all  Muslim 
tliiukers  he  displays  an  anxiety  to  square  with  his 
philosophy  the  terms  dear  to  the  multitude. 

To  Ibn  Taymiya  all  this  was  the  very  abomination 
of  desolation  itself.  He  had  no  use  for  mystics, 
philosophers,  Ash'arite  theologians,  or,  in  fact,  for 
anyone  except  himself.  A  contemporary  described 
him  as  a  man  most  able  and  learned  in  many  sci- 
ences, but  with  a  screw  loose.  However  it  may  have 
been  about  the  last  point,  there  can  be  no  question 
that  he  was  the  reviver  for  his  time  and  the  trans- 
mitter to  our  time  of  the  genuine  Hanbalite  tradi- 
tion, and  that  his  work  rendered  possible  the  Wah- 
habites  and  the  Brotherhood  of  as-Sanusi.  He  was 
the  champion  of  the  religion  of  the  multitude  as  op- 
posed to  that  of  the  educated  few  with  which  we  have 
been  dealing  so  long.  This  popular  theology  had 
been  going  steadily  upon  its  way  and  producing  its 
regular  riots  and  disputings.  It  is  related  of  a  cer- 
tain Ash^arite  doctor,  Fakhr  ad-Din  ibn  Asakir  (d. 
620),  that,  in  Damascus,  he  never  dared  to  pass  by  a 
certain  way  through  fear  of  Hanbalite  violence.  The 
same  Fakhr  ad-Din  once  gave,  as  in  duty  bound,  the 
normal  salutation  of  the  Peace  to  a  Hanbalite  theolo- 
gian. The  Hanbalite  did  not  return  it,  which  was 
more  than  a  breach  of  courtesy,  and  indicated  that 
he  did  not  regard  Fakhr  ad-Din  as  a  Muslim.  When 
people  remonstrated  with  him,  he  turned  it  as  a  the- 
ological jest  and  replied,  "  That  man  believes  in 
*  Speech  in  the  Mind '  {halam  nafsi,  haditJi  Ji-n-nafs), 
so  I  returned  his  salutation  mentally."  The  point  is 
a  hit  at  the  Ash'arites,  who  contended  that  thought 


274  THEOLOGY 

was  a  kind  of  speech  without  letters  or  sounds,  and 
that  God's  quality  of  Speech  could  therefore  be  with- 
out letters  or  sounds. 

But  even  the  simple  orthodoxy  of  the  populace 
had  not  remained  unchanged.  It  had  received  a  vast 
accretion  of  the  most  multifarious  superstitions.  The 
cult  of  saints,  alive  and  dead,  of  holy  sites,  trees,  gar- 
ments, and  the  observance  of  all  manner  of  days  and 
seasons  had  been  developing  parallel  to  the  advance 
of  Sufiism  among  the  educated.  The  ivalis  were  un- 
tiring in  the  recital  of  the  haramat  which  God  had 
worked  for  them,  and  the  populace  drank  in  the 
wonders  greedily.  The  metaphysical  and  theological 
side  they  left  untouched.  '*This  is  a  holy  man," 
they  said,  "  who  can  work  miracles ;  we  must  fear 
and  serve  him."  And  so  they  would  do  without 
much  thought  whether  his  morality  might  not  be  an- 
tinomian  and  his  theology  pantheistic.  To  abate  this 
and  other  evils  and  bring  back  the  faith  of  the 
fathers  was  the  task  which  Ibn  Taymiya  took  up. 

He  was  born  near  Damascus  in  661  and  educated 
as  a  Hanbalite.  His  family  had  been  Hanbalite  for 
generations,  and  he  himself  taught  in  that  school  and 
was  reckoned  as  the  greatest  Hanbalite  of  his  time. 
His  position,  too,  was  practically  that  of  Ahmad  ibn 
Hanbal,  modified  by  the  necessities  imposed  by  new 
controversaries.  Thus  he  was  an  anthropomorphist, 
but  of  what  exact  shade  is  obscure.  He  was  accused 
of  teaching  that  God  was  above  His  throne,  could  be 
pointed  at,  and  that  He  descended  from  His  seat  as 
a  man  might,  i.e.,  that  He  was  in  space.  But  he 
certainly  distinguished  himself  from  the  crasser  ma- 


A  MUJTAHID  275 

terialists.  He  refused  to  be  classed  as  the  adherent 
of  any  school  or  of  any  system  save  that  of  Muham- 
mad and  the  agreement  of  the  fathers.  He  claimed 
for  himself  the  rights  of  a  mujtahid  and  went  back  to 
first  sources  and  principles  in  everything.  His  self- 
confidence  was  extreme,  and  he  smote  down  with 
proud  words  the  Eightly  Guided  Khalifas,  Umar  and 
Ali,  themselves.  His  bases  were  Qur'an,  tradition 
from  the  Prophet  and  from  the  Companions  and  anal- 
ogy. Agreement,  in  the  broad  sense  of  the  agree- 
ment of  the  Muslim  people,  he  rejected.  If  he  had 
accepted  it  he  Avould  have  been  forced  to  accept  in- 
numerable superstitions,  beliefs,  and  practices — espe- 
cially the  whole  doctrine  of  the  ivalis  and  their  won- 
ders— for  their  basis  was  agreement.  The  agree- 
ment of  the  Companions  he  did  accept,  while  con- 
victing them  right  and  left  of  error  as  individuals. 

His  life  was  filled  up  with  persecutions  and  misfort- 
une. He  was  a  popular  idol,  and  inquiries  for  his 
judgment  on  theological  and  canonical  questions  kept 
pouring  in  upon  him.  If  there  was  no  inquiry,  and 
he  felt  that  a  situation  called  for  an  expression  of 
opinion  from  him,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  send  it  out 
with  all  formality.  It  is  true  that  it  is  the  duty  of 
every  Muslim,  so  far  as  he  can,  to  do  away  or  at 
least  to  denounce  any  illegality  or  unorthodox  view  or 
practice  which  he  may  observe.  This  duty  evi- 
dently weighed  heavily  on  Ibn  Taymiya,  and  there 
was  fear  at  one  time  at  the  Mamluk  court  lest  he 
might  go  the  way  of  Ibn  Tumart.  In  one  of  these 
utterances  he  defined  the  doctrine  of  God's  qualities 
as  Ibn  Hazm  had  done,  and  joined  thereto  denuncia- 


276  THEOLOGY 

tions  of  tlie  Ash'arite  kalam  and  of  the  Qnr'anic  exe- 
gesis of  the  mutakallims  as  a  whole.  They  were 
nothing  but  the  heirs  and  scholars  of  philosophers, 
idolaters,  Magians,  etc. ;  and  yet  they  dared  to  go 
beyond  the  Prophet  and  his  heirs  and  Companions. 
The  consequence  of  this  fativa  or  legal  opinion  was 
that  he  was  silenced  for  a  time  as  a  teacher.  On 
another  occasion  he  gave  out  ^fatwa  on  divorce,  pro- 
nouncing talilil  illegal.  Tahlil  is  a  device  by  which 
an  awkward  section  in  the  canon  law  is  evaded.  If  a 
man  divorces  his  wife  three  times,  or  pronounces  a 
threefold  divorce  formula,  he  cannot  remarry  her  until 
she  has  been  married  to  another  man,  has  cohabited 
with  him  and  been  divorced  by  him.  Muslim  ideas 
of  sexual  purity  are  essentially  different  from  ours, 
and  the  custom  has  grown  up,  when  a  man  has  thus 
divorced  his  wife  in  hasty  anger,  of  employing  another 
to  marry  her  on  pledge  of  divorcing  her  again  next 
day.  Sometimes  the  man  so  employed  refuses  to 
carry  out  his  contract ;  such  refusal  is  a  frequent 
motif  in  oriental  tales.  To  avoid  this,  the  husband 
not  infrequently  employs  one  of  his  slaves  and  then 
presents  him  to  his  former  wife  the  next  day.  A 
slave  can  legally  marry  a  free  woman,  but  when  he 
becomes  her  property  the  marriage  is  ipso  facto 
annulled,  because  a  slave  cannot  be  the  husband  of 
his  mistress  or  a  slave  woman  the  wife  of  her  master. 
It  is  to  Ibn  Taymiya's  credit  that  he  was  one  of  the 
few  to  lift  up  their  voices  against  this  abomination. 
His  independence  is  shown  at  its  best. 

But  it  was  witli  the  Sufis  that  he  had  his  worst  con- 
flicts, and  at  their  hands  he  suffered  most.     In  many 


CONTROVEKSY   WITH   SUFIS  277 

points  his  career  is  parallel  to  that  of  Ahmad  ibn 
Hanbal,  the  Sufi  movement  taking  the  place  that  was 
played  by  Mu'tazilism  in  the  life  of  the  earlier  saint. 
One  great  difference,  it  may  be  remarked,  was  that  al- 
Ma'mun  urged  the  persecution  of  Ibn  Hanbal,  while 
an-Nasir,  the  great  Mamluk  Sultan  (reg.  693,  698- 
708,  709-741),  supported  Ibn  Taymiya  as  far  as  he 
possibly  could.  The  beginning  of  the  Sufi  contro- 
versy was  characteristic.  Ibn  Taymiya  heard  that  a 
certain  an-Nasr  al-Manbiji  (d.  719  ? ),  a  reputed  fol- 
lower of  Ibn  Arabi  and  of  Ibn  Sab'in,  had  reached  a 
position  of  influence  in  Cairo.  That  was  enough  to 
make  Ibn  Taymiya  address  an  epistle  to  him,  in- 
tended to  turn  him  from  his  heresies.  It  is  needless 
to  give  in  detail  the  position  and  content  of  the 
epistle.  He  wrote  as  a  strong  monotheist  of  the  old- 
fashioned  type  and  exposed  and  assailed  unmercifully 
the  doctrine  of  Unity  {ittihad)  of  the  mystics.  Al- 
Manbiji  retorted  with  countercharges  of  heresy,  and, 
as  he  had  behind  him  all  the  Sufis  of  Egypt — as 
great  an  army  as  the  Christian  monks  and  ascetics  or 
earlier  Egypt  and  much  like  to  them — Ibn  Taymiya 
had  to  pay  for  his  eagerness  for  a  fight  with  long  and 
painful  imprisonment  at  Cairo,  Alexandria  and  Da- 
mascus. Here  it  is  evident  that  he  had  lost  touch  with 
the  drift  of  popular,  and  especially  Egyptian,  feeling. 
But  his  fearlessness  was  like  that  of  Ibn  Hanbal 
himself,  and  in  726  he  gave  out  a  fatioa  which  ran 
still  straighter  in  the  teeth  of  the  beliefs  of  the  peo- 
ple and  which  sent  him  to  a  prison  which  he  never  left 
alive.  It  had  long  been  a  custom  in  Islam  to  make 
pious  pilgrimage  to  the  graves  of  saints  and  prophets 


278  THEOLOGY 

and  there  to  do  reverence  to  their  memory  and  to 
ask  their  aid.  It  was  part  of  that  cult  of  saints 
which  had  so  overspread  and  overcome  the  earlier 
simplicity  of  Islam.  The  most  outstanding  case  in 
point  was,  and  is,  the  pilgrimage  to  the  tomb  of  Mu- 
hammad at  al-Madina,  which  has  come  to  be  a  more 
or  less  essential  part  of  the  Hajj  to  the  Ka'ba  itself. 
Against  all  this  Ibn  Taymiya  lifted  a  voice  of  em- 
phatic protest.  These  shrines  were  in  great  jDart 
false,  and  when  they  were  genuine  the  visitation  of 
them  was  an  idolatrous  imitation  of  heathen  practices. 
Equally  idolatrous  was  all  invoking  of  saints  or  proph- 
ets, including  Muhammad  himself ;  to  God  alone 
should  prayer  be  directed.  The  clamor  raised  by 
this  fativa  was  tremendous.  This  was  no  doctrine  of 
the  schools  which  he  had  touched,  but  a  bit  of  con- 
crete religiosity  which  appealed  to  everj^one.  His 
public  life  practically  ended,  and  the  practices  which 
he  had  denounced  abide  to  this  day.  It  is  a  bitter 
satire  on  his  position  that  when  he  died  in  726  the 
populace  paid  to  his  relics  all  these  signs  of  super- 
stitious reverence  against  which  he  had  protested. 
He  became  a  saint,  malgre  lui.  His  work  had  been 
to  keep  alive  the  Hanbalite  doctrine  and  pass  it  on 
unchanged  to  modern  times.  He  did  not  destroy 
philosophy  :  it  was  dead  of  itself  before  he  came. 
Nor  Sufiism :  it  is  still  very  much  alive.  Nor  halam  : 
it  still  continues  in  the  form  to  which  it  had  crystal- 
lized by  his  time.  But  he  and  his  disciples  made 
possible  the  AVahhabites  and  the  monotheistic  re- 
vival of  our  day.  The  faith  of  Muhammad  himself 
was  not  to  perish  entirely  from  the  earth. 


ash-sha'rani  279 

It  would  now  be  possible  to  pass  at  once  to  the 
AVahhabite  movement  in  the  latter  part  of  the  tweKth 
century  of  the  Hijra.  All  the  elements  for  the  ex- 
planation of  it  and  of  the  modern  situation  are  in  our 
hands.  But  there  is  one  figure  which  stands  out  so 
clearly  in  an  otherwise  most  obscure  picture  and  is 
so  significant  for  the  time,  that  some  account  must  be 
taken  of  it.  It  is  that  of  ash-Sha'rani,  theologian, 
canonist,  and  mystic.  He  was  a  Cairene  and  died  in 
973.  The  rule  of  Egypt  had  passed  half  a  century 
before  to  the  Ottoman  Turks,  and  they  governed  by 
means  of  a  Turkish  Pasha.  The  condition  of  the 
people,  as  we  find  it  sketched  by  ash-Sha'rani,  was  a 
most  unhappy  one.  They  were  bent  down,  and  es- 
pecially the  peasantry,  under  a  load  of  taxation.  The 
Turks  found  it  advisable,  too,  to  cultivate  the  friend- 
ship of  the  canon  lawyers  and  professional  theologi- 
ans in  order  to  maintain  their  hold  upon  the  people. 
These  canonists,  in  consequence,  were  rapidly  becom- 
ing an  official  class  with  official  privileges.  Further, 
the  process,  the  beginnings  of  which  we  have  already 
seen,  by  which  religious  science  was  narrowed  to  jiqJi, 
had  gone  still  further.  Practically,  the  two  classes  of 
theologians  left  were  the  canonists  and  the  mystics. 
And  the  mystics  had  fallen  far  from  their  pride  of 
power  under  the  Mamluks.  They  now  were  of  the 
poor  of  the  land,  a  kind  of  Essenes  over  against  the 
Pharisees  of  the  schools. 

Such,  at  least,  is  the  picture  of  his  time  which  ash- 
Sha'rani  gives.  How  far  it  is  exact  must  remain  un- 
certain. For,  of  the  many  puzzling  personalities  in 
Islam,  ash-Sha'rani  is  perhaps  for  us  the  most  unin- 


280  THEOLOGY 

telligible.  He  combined  the  most  abject  superstitions 
of  a  superstitious  age  and  country  with  lofty  ethical 
indignation  ;  social  humility  of  the  most  extreme  with 
an  intellectual  pride  and  arrogance  rarely  paralleled, 
a  keen  and  original  grasp  of  the  canon  law  of  the 
four  schools  with  an  utter  submission  of  the  intellect 
to  the  inbreathings  of  the  divine  from  without ;  a 
power  of  discreet  silence  as  to  the  inconvenient  with 
an  open-mouthed  vehemence  in  other  things.  He 
was  a  devoted  follower  of  Ibn  Arabi  and  defended  his 
memory  against  the  accusation  of  heresy.  Yet  his 
position  is  singularly  different  from  that  of  Ibn  Arabi, 
and  a  doubt  cannot  but  rise  as  to  either  his  knowl- 
edge, his  intelligence,  or  his  honesty.  Practically 
where  he  differs  from  the  ordinary  Muslim  is  in  his 
extension  of  the  doctrine  of  saints.  As  to  the  Most 
Beautiful  Names  {al-asma  al-liusnd),  he  follows  Ibn 
Hazm.  So,  too,  as  to  God's  qualities,  he  follows  the 
older  school  and  would  prefer  to  leave  them  uncon- 
sidered. But  he  is,  otherwise  and  in  general,  a  sound 
Ash'arite,  e.^.,  on  the  doctrine  of  predestination,  and 
of  man's  part  in  his  works  {iktisah).  There  is  in  him 
no  sign  of  the  Plotinian  pantheism  of  Ibn  Arabi. 
The  doctrine  of  God's  difference  {ynukhalafa)  he 
taught,  and  that  He  created  the  world  by  His  will 
and  not  by  any  emanation  of  energy. 

But  truth  for  him  is  not  to  be  reached  by  specula- 
tion and  argument :  its  only  basis  is  through  the  un- 
veiling of  the  inner  eye  which  brings  us  to  the  imme- 
diate Vision  of  the  Divine.  Those  who  have  reached 
that  Vision,  guide  and  teach  those  who  cannot  or 
have  not.     Upon  that  Vision  all  systems  are  built. 


THE   UNSEEN   WOELD  281 

and  reason  can  only  serve  the  visionary  as  a  defence 
against  the  gainsayer  or  against  his  own  too  wild 
thoughts.  Naturally,  with  such  a  starting-point  as 
this  the  supernatural  side  of  things  (al-ghayb)  receives 
strong  emphasis.  The  Jinn  and  the  angels  are  most 
intense  realities.  Ash-Sha'rani  met  them  in  familiar 
converse.  He  met,  too,  al-Khadir,  the  undying  pil- 
grim saint  who  wanders  through  the  lands,  succoring 
and  guiding.  The  details  of  these  interviews  are 
given  with  the  greatest  exactness.  A  Jinni  in  the 
form  of  a  dog  ran  into  his  house  on  such  a  day  by 
such  a  door,  with  a  piece  of  European  paper  in  his 
mouth — this  is  a  touch  of  genius — on  which  certain 
theological  questions  were  wa-itten.  The  Jinni  wished 
ash-Sha'rani's  opinion  as  to  them.  Such  was  the 
origin  of  one  of  his  books,  and  another  sprang  from 
a  similarly  exactly  described  talk  with  al-Khadir.  Yet 
he  was  content  also  with  smaller  mercies  and  reckons 
as  a  harama  that  he  was  enabled  to  read  through  a 
certain  book  for  some  time  at  the  rate  of  two  and  a 
half  times  daily.  To  all  this  it  would  be  possible  of 
course  to  say  flatly  that  he  lied.  But  such  a  judg- 
ment applied  to  an  oriental  is  somewhat  crude,  and 
the  knot  of  the  mystic's  mind  in  any  land  is  not  to  be 
so  easily  cut.  Further,  the  doctrine  of  the  loalis  is 
developed  by  him  at  length.  They  possess  a  certain 
illumination  {ilham),  which  is,  however,  different  from 
the  inspiration  {loahy)  of  the  prophets.  So,  too,  they 
never  reach  the  grade  of  the  prophets,  or  a  nearness 
to  God  where  the  requirements  of  a  revealed  law  fall 
away  from  them,  i.e.,  they  must  always  walk  accord- 
ing to  the  law  of  a  prophet.     They  are  all  guided  by 


282  THEOLOGY 

God,  whatever  their  particular  Kule  (tarlqa)  may  be, 
but  the  Rule  of  al-Junayd  (p.  176)  is  the  best  because 
it  is  in  most  essential  agreement  with  the  Law 
(shari'a)  of  Islam.  Their  karamat  are  true  and  are  a 
consequence  of  their  devout  labors,  for  these  are  in 
agreement  with  the  Qur'an  and  the  Sunna.  The 
order  of  nature  will  not  be  broken  for  anyone  who 
has  not  achieved  more  than  is  usual  in  religious 
knowledge  and  exercises.  All  loalis  stand  under  a 
regular  hierarchy  headed  by  the  Qutb ;  yet  above 
him  in  holiness  stand  the  Companions  of  the  Prophet. 
This  marks  a  very  moderate  position.  Many  Sufis 
had  contended  that  the  ivalis  stood  higher  than  even 
the  prophets,  not  to  speak  of  their  Companions. 

It  will  be  seen  that  his  position  is  essentially  a 
mediating  one.  He  wishes  to  show  that  the  beliefs 
of  the  mystics  and  of  the  mutakallims  are  really  one 
although  they  are  reached  by  different  paths.  In 
JiqJi  he  made  a  similar  attempt.  The  Sufis  had  al- 
waj^s  looked  down  on  those  theologians  who  were 
canonists  pure  and  simple.  A  study  of  canon  law 
was  a  necessity,  they  thought ;  but  as  a  propaedeutic 
only.  The  canonists  who  w^ent  no  further  never 
reached  religion  at  all.  Especially  they  held  that  no 
Sufi  should  join  himself  to  any  of  the  four  contend- 
ing schools.  Their  controversies  were  upon  insignif- 
icant details  Avhich  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  life 
in  God.  But  could  it  not  be  shown  that  their  dif- 
ferences were  not  actual — one  view  being  true  and 
the  other  false — but  w^ere  capable  of  being  reduced 
to  a  unity  ?  This  was  the  problem  that  ash-Sha'rani 
attacked.      These   differing   oj)inions,    he   held,    are 


THE   WAHHABITES  283 

adapted  to  different  classes  of  men.  Some  men  of 
greater  gifts  and  endurance  can  follow  the  hardest 
of  these  opinions,  while  the  easier  are  to  be  recognized 
as  concessions  (ruJchsa)  from  God  to  the  weakness  of 
others.  Each  man  may  follow  freely  the  view  which 
appeals  to  him  ;  God  has  appointed  it  for  him. 

Ash-Sha'rani  was  one  of  the  last  original  thinkers 
in  Islam  :  for  a  thinker  he  was  despite  his  dealings 
with  the  Jinn  and  al-Khadir.  Egypt  keeps  his 
memory.  A  mosque  in  Cairo  bears  his  name,  as 
does  also  a  division  of  the  Badawite  darwishes.  In 
modern  times  his  books  have  been  frequently  re- 
printed, and  his  influence  is  one  of  the  ferments  in 
the  new  Islam. 

We  must  now  pass  over  about  two  hundred  years 
and  come  to  the  latter  part  of  the  twelfth  century  of 
the  Hijra,  a  period  nearly  coinciding  wdtli  the  end  of 
the  eighteenth  of  our  era.  There  these  two  move- 
ments come  again  to  light.  Wahhabism,  the  histori- 
cal origin  of  which  we  have  already  seen  (p.  60),  is 
a  branch  of  the  school  of  Ibn  Taymiya.  Manuscripts 
of  the  works  of  Ibn  Taymiya  copied  by  the  hand 
of  Ibn  Abd  al-Wahhab  exist  in  Europe.  So  the 
Wahhabites  refused  to  accept  as  binding  the  de- 
cisions of  the  four  orthodox  sects  of  canon  law. 
Agreement  as  a  source  they  also  reject.  The  whole 
People  of  Muhammad  can  err  and  has  erred.  Only 
the  agreement  of  the  Companions  has  binding  force 
for  them.  It  is,  therefore,  the  duty  and  right  of  every 
man  to  draw  his  ow^n  doctrine  from  the  Qur'an  and 
the  traditions  ;  the  systems  of  the  schools  should 
have  no   weight   with   him.     Again,   they  take   the 


284  THEOLOGY 

authropomorpliisms  of  the  Qur'an  in  tlieir  literal 
sense.  God  has  a  hand,  God  settles  Himself  on  His 
throne ;  so  it  must  be  held  "  without  inquiring  how 
and  without  comparison."  They  profess  to  be  the 
only  true  Muslims,  applying  to  themselves  the  term 
Muwahhids  and  calling  all  others  Musliriks,  assigners 
of  companions  to  God.  Again,  like  Ibn  Taymiya, 
they  reject  the  intercession  of  loalis  with  God.  It  is 
allowable  to  ask  of  God  for  the  sake  of  a  saint  but 
not  to  pray  to  the  saint.  This  applies  also  to  Mu- 
hammad. Pilgrimage  to  the  tombs  of  saints,  the 
presenting  of  offerings  there,  all  acts  of  reverence, 
they  also  forbid.  No  regard  should  be  paid  even 
to  the  tomb  of  the  Prophet  at  al-Madina.  All 
such  ceremonies  are  idolatrous.  Whenever  possible 
the  Wahhabites  destroy  and  level  the  shrines  of 
saints. 

Over  other  details,  such  as  the  prohibition  of  the 
use  of  tobacco,  we  need  not  spend  time.  Wahhabism 
as  a  political  force  is  gone.  It  has,  however,  left  the 
Sanusi  revolt  as  its  direct  descendant  and  what  may 
be  the  outcome  of  that  Brotherhood  we  have  no 
means  of  guessing.  It  has  also  left  a  general  revival 
and  reformation  throughout  the  Church  of  Iskim, 
much  parallel,  as  has  been  remarked,  to  the  counter- 
reformation  which  followed  the  Protestant  Eeforma- 
tion  in  Europe. 

The  second  movement  is  the  revival  of  the  influence 
of  al-Ghazzali.  That  influence  never  became  ab- 
solutely extinct  and  it  seems  to  have  remained  espe- 
cially strong  in  al-Yaman.  In  that  corner  of  the  Mus- 
lim world  generations   of  Sufis  lived  comi3aratively 


INFLUENCE   OF  AL-GHAZZALI  285 

iiudisturbed,  and  it  was  the  Sayyid  Murtada,  a  native 
of  Zabid  in  Tihama,  who  by  his  great  commentary  on 
the  Ihya  of  al-Ghazzali  practically  founded  the  modern 
study  of  that  book.  There  have  been  two  editions 
of  this  commentary  in  ten  quarto  volumes  and  many 
of  the  Ihja  itself  and  of  other  works  by  al-Ghazzali. 
"Whether  his  readers  understand  him  fully  or  not, 
there  can  be  no  question  of  the  wide  influence  which 
he  is  now  exercising.  At  Mecca,  for  example,  the 
orthodox  theological  teaching  is  practically  Ghaz- 
zalian  and  the  controversy  throughout  all  Arabia  is 
whether  Ibn  Taymiya  and  al-Ghazzali  can  be  called 
Shaykhs  of  Islam.  The  Wahhabites  hold  that  any- 
one who  thus  honors  al-Ghazzali  is  an  unbeliever,  and 
the  Meccans  retort  the  same  of  the  followers  of  Ibn 
Taymiya. 

These  two  tendencies  then — that  back  to  the  simple 
monotheism  of  Muhammad  and  that  to  an  agnostic 
mysticism — are  the  hopeful  signs  in  modern  Islam. 
There  are  many  other  drifts  in  which  there  is  no  such 
hope.  Simple  materialism  under  European,  mostly 
French,  influence  is  one.  A  seeking  of  salvation  in 
the  study  of  canon  law  is  another.  Canon  law  is  still 
the  field  to  which  an  enormous  proportion  of  Muslim 
theologians  turn.  Again,  there  are  various  forms 
of  frankly  pantheistic  mysticism.  That  is  especially 
the  case  among  Persians  and  Turks.  For  the  body 
of  the  people,  religion  is  still  overburdened,  as  in 
Ibn  Taymiya's  days,  with  a  mass  of  superstition. 
Lives  of  loalis  containing  the  wildest  and  most 
blasphemous  stories  abound  and  are  eagerl}^  read. 
The  books  of  ash-Sha'rani  are  especially  rich  in  such 


286  THEOLOGY 

hagiology.  It  is  difficult  for  us  to  realize  that  stories 
like  the  most  extravagant  in  the  Thousand  and  One 
Nights  are  the  simplest  possibilities  to  the  masses  of 
Islam.  The  canon  lawyers,  stil],  in  their  discussions, 
take  account  of  the  existence  of  Jinn,  and  no  theo- 
logian would  dare  to  doubt  that  Solomon  sealed  them 
up  in  brass  bottles.  Of  philosophy,  in  the  free  and 
large  sense,  there  is  no  trace.  Ibn  Eushd's  reply  to 
al-Ghazzali's  "  Destruction  of  the  Philosophers  "  has 
been  printed,  but  only  as  a  pendant  to  that  work. 
In  it,  too,  Ibn  Rushd  carefully  covers  his  great  here- 
sies. His  tractates  on  the  study  of  kalam,  spoken  of 
above,  have  also  been  reprinted  at  Cairo  from  the 
European  edition.  But  these  tractates  are  arranged 
to  give  no  clew  to  his  real  philosophy.  The  Arabic 
Aristotelianism  has  perished  utterly  from  the  Muslim 
lands.  Of  the  modern  Indian  Mu'tazilism  no  ac- 
count need  be  taken  here.  It  is  derived  from  Europe 
and  is  ordinary  Christian  Unitarianism,  connecting 
with  Muhammad  instead  of  with  Jesus. 

From  the  above  sketch  some  necessary  conditions 
are  clear,  which  must  be  fulfilled  if  there  is  to  be  a 
chance  for  a  future  development  in  Islam.  Educa- 
tion must  be  widely  extended.  The  proportion  of 
trained  minds  must  be  greatly  increased  and  the  bar- 
rier between  them  and  the  commonalty  removed. 
The  economy  of  teaching  has  failed ;  it  has  destroyed 
the  doctrine  which  it  sought  to  protect.  Again,  the 
slavery  of  the  disciple  to  the  master  must  cease.  It 
must  always  be  possible  for  the  student,  in  defiance 
of  taqlid,  to  go  back  to  first  principles  or  to  the 
primary  facts  and  to  disregard  what  the  great  Imams 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   THE   FUTURE  287 

and  Mujtaliids  have  taught.  So  much  of  health  there 
was  in  the  Zahirite  system. 

Third,  these  primary  facts  must  include  the  facts 
of  natural  science.  The  student,  emancipated  from 
the  control  of  the  schools,  must  turn  from  the  study 
of  himself  to  an  examination  of  the  great  world.  And 
that  examination  must  not  be  cosmological  but  bio- 
logical; it  must  not  lose  itself  in  the  infinities  but 
find  itself  in  concrete  realities.  It  must  experiment 
and  test  rather  than  build  lofty  hypotheses. 

But  can  the  oriental  mind  thus  deny  itself?  The 
English  educational  experiment  in  Egypt  may  go  far 
to  answer  that  question. 


APPENDICES 

I.  Illustrative  Documents  Tbanslathd  fbom  the  Ababic. 
II.  Selected  Bibliogbapht. 
III.  Chbonological  Table. 


APPENDIX  I 

1.  ASH-ShAHRASTANI  ON  THE  CLASSIFICATION  OF  MUSLIM  SECTS. 

2.  Two  TllADITIONS  FROM  MUHAMMAD  ON   THE  ESSENTIALS  OF 

Islam. 

3.  A  SHORT  Creed  by  al-Ash'ari. 

4.  A  SHORT  Creed  by  al-Ghazzali. 

5.  A  SHORT  Creed  by  an-Nasafi  (Mataridite). 

6.  A  Scholastic  exposition  of  the  Fundamentals  of  The- 

ology. 

7.  Analysis  of  a  Treatise  in  Canon  Law. 

Notes  have  been  added  where  such  appeared  called  for,  bnt  the 
index,  facilitating  reference  to  the  body  of  the  book,  renders  a 
full  commentary  unnecessaryo  The  student  should  use  the  index 
as  a  vocabulary  of  technical  termsj  referring  for  their  explanation 
to  the  passages  where  they  occur. 


ash-shahrastani  on  the  classification  of  MUSLIM  sects 

Then  I  applied  myself  to  what  of  arrangement  was  easy  of 
attainment  and  to  what  of  attainment  was  easy  of  arrangement, 
until  I  had  crowded  them  [the  different  opinions]  into  four 
fundamentals,  which  are  the  great  principles.  The  first 
fundamental  concerns  the  Qualities  (si/at)  with  the  Unity 
{tawliid) ;  it  embraces  the  question  of  the  eternal  {azali)  Qual- 
ities, affirmed  by  some  and  denied  by  others,  and  of  the  ex- 
position of  the  essential  Qualities  {si/at  adh-dliat)  and  of  the 
active  Qualities  {sifat  al-jiH)  and  of  what  is  necessary  in  God 
Most  High  and  what  is  possible  for  Him  and  what  is  impos- 
sible ;  it  involves  the  controversies  between  the  Ash'arites  and 
the  Karramites  and  the  Anthropomorphists  (mujassims)  and 
the  Mu'tazilites.  The  second  fundamental  concerns  decree 
(qadar)  and  justice  (adl) ;  it  embraces  the  question  of  destiny 
(qada)  and   decree   {qada?-) ;  of   force  [jab?')    and   acquisition 

291 


292  APPENDIX   I 

(kasb)  ;  of  the  willing  of  good  and  of  evil  and  of  the  decreed 
and  the  known,  affirmed  by  some  and  denied  by  others  ;  it 
involves  the  controversies  between  the  Qadarites  and  Najjarites 
and  Jabarites  and  Ash'arites  and  Karramites.  The  third 
fundamental  concerns  promise  (wa'd)  tftid  the  decisions  {Jm- 
kms)  ;  it  embraces  the  question  of  faith  {iman)  and  repentance 
(tawba)  and  threatening  {waHd)  and  postponing  {irja)  and 
pronouncing  anyone  an  unbeliever  [takfir)  and  leading  anyone 
astray  [tadlil),  affirmed  by  some  and  denied  by  others  ;  it 
involves  the  controversies  between  the  Murji'ites  and  the 
Wa'idites  and  the  Mu'tazilites  and  the  Ash'arites  and  the 
Karramites.  The  fourth  fundamental  concerns  tradition 
(sam)  and  reason  (aql)  and  the  prophetic  mission  (risala) 
and  the  imamate ;  it  embraces  the  questions  of  the  determi- 
nation of  actions  as  good  {tahsin)  or  vile  (taqbih)  ;  of  the  ad- 
vantageous {salah)  and  most  advantageous  (aslah)  ;  of  be- 
nignity (lutf) ;  of  the  prophets  being  guarded  against  sin 
(isma) ;  of  the  condition  of  the  imamate,  by  statute  (nass) 
according  to  some  and  by  agreement  [ijmd)  according  to 
others,  and  how  it  is  transferred  on  the  view  of  those  who  sav 
it  is  bv  statute,  and  how  it  is  fixed  on  the  view  of  those  who 
say  it  is  by  agreement ;  it  involves  the  controversies  between 
the  Shi'ites  and  the  Kharijites  and  the  Mu'tazilites  and  the 
Karramites  and  the  Ash'arites. — Translated  from  CuretorHs 
Arabic  text,  p.  4. 

II 

THE  PROPHET  IN   A   TRADITION 

"Islam  is  built  upon  five  things;  testimony  that  there  is 
no  god  but  God  and  that  Muhammad  is  the  Apostle  of  God. 
Prayer  (salat),  the  Poor-rate  (zakat),  Pilgrimage  (hajj)  and 
Fast  (sawm)  in  Ramadan." 

A  TRADITION   OF  THE  PROPHET 

Jibril  came  in  the  form  of  an  Arab  of  the  desert  and  sat 
down  so  that  his  knees  touched  the  knees  of  the  Prophet  and 
said,  *'0  Apostle  of  God,  what  is  Islam?"  He  said,  "That 
thou  should  bear  witness  that  there  is  no  god  save  God  and 


MUHAMMAD;  al-ash'ari  293 

that  I  am  the  Apostle  of  God  ;  that  thou  shouldest  perform 
the  prayers  (salat)  and  bring  the  poor-rate  [zaJcat)  and  fast  in 
the  month  of  Eamadan  and  pilgrimage  to  the  House  if  the 
way  is  possible  for  thee."  He  said,  "  Thou  hast  spoken  truly." 
Then  he  said,  "What  is  Faith  {imayi}!"  The  Prophet  said, 
"That  thou  should  believe  in  God  and  His  angels  and  His 
books  and  His  messengers  and  in  the  Last  Day,  and  that  thou 
should  believe  in  the  decreeing  (qadar)  both  of  good  and 
of  evil."  He  said,  "  Thou  hast  spoken  truly."  Then  he  said, 
"What  is  right  doing  {ihsan)?"  The  Prophet  said,  "That 
thou  should  serve  God  as  though  thou  sawest  Him ;  for 
though  thou  seest  Him  not,  He  sees  thee."  He  said,  "  Thou 
hast  spoken  truly."  Then  he  said,  "When  shall  be  the  Last 
Day  (as-sa^a)?'''  The  Prophet  said,  "The  questioned  know- 
eth  not  more  of  that  than  the  questioner."  Then  he  arose  and 
went  out.  And  the  Prophet  said,  "That  was  Jibril;  he  came 
to  you  to  teach  you  your  religion  (din)." — Translated  from 
Cureton's  text  of  ash-Shahrastani,  p.  '2il. 

Ill 

A   SHORT  CREED  BY  AL-ASH*aRI 

Our  doctrine  which  we  teach  and  our  religion  {diyana)  which  we  follcw 
consists  in  clinging  fast  to  the  Book  of  God  and  the  Usage  {sun7ia)  of 
His  Prophet  and  to  that  which  is  handed  down  from  the  Companions, 
their  immediate  followers  (tabi's)  and  from  the  leaders  {ima77is)  in 
tradition — with  that  we  take  refuge ;  and  we  teach  that  which 
Ahmad  ibn  Hanbal — may  Grod  illumine  his  face,  exalt  his  rank  and 
make  great  his  reward — followed ;  and  we  shun  that  which  is  op- 
posed to  his  doctrine.  For  he  is  the  excellent  leader,  the  perfect 
chief,  through  whom  God  made  plain  the  truth,  when  error  was  made 
manifest,  and  showed  the  path  and  smote  down  the  innovations  of 
the  innovators,  the  deviations  of  the  deviators  and  the  doubts  of  the 
doubters.  So,  the  mercy  of  God  be  upon  him  for  an  appointed 
leader  and  an  instructed  chief,  and  upon  all  the  leaders  of  the  Mus- 
lims. 

The  sum  of  our  doctrine  is  this,  that  we  believe  in  God,  His 
Angels,  His  Books,  His  Apostles,  in  all  that  has  come  from 
God,  and  what  trustworthy  men   {thiqai)  have  reported  from 


294  APPENDIX  I 

the  Apostles  of  God  ;  we  oppose  nothing  thereof.  That  God 
is  One  God,  Single,  One,  Eternal ;  beside  Him  no  God  exists  ; 
He  has  taken  to  Himself  no  wife  (sahiba),  nor  child  {walad) ; 
and  that  Muhammad  is  His  Servant  (ahd)  and  His  Apostle. 
That  Paradise  and  Hell  are  Verity  and  that  the  Hour  [as-sa^a) 
will  come  without  doubt,  and  God  will  arouse  those  that  are 
in  the  graves.  That  God  has  settled  Himself  {istawa)  upon 
His  throne,  as  He  has  said,  (Qur.  20,  4);  "the  Rahman  has 
settled  Himself  upon  His  throne."  That  God  has  a  counte- 
nance, as  He  has  said,  (Qur.  55,  27) ;  "  and  the  countenance  of 
thy  Lord  will  abide,  full  of  majesty  and  glory  ;  "  and  two 
hands,  as  He  has  said,  (Qur.  5,  69);  "much  more!  both  His 
hands  are  spread  out,"  and  (Qur.  38,  75);  "  that  which  I  have 
created  with  both  My  hands  ; "  and  two  eyes,  without  asking 
how  {bila  Tcayfj),  as  He  has  said,  (Qur.  54,  14)  ;  "  which  swims 
forth  under  Our  eyes."  That  whoever  thinks  that  God's  name 
is  other  than  He,  is  in  error.  That  God  has  Knowledge  {ihii)y 
as  He  has  said,  (Qur.  35,  12);  "Not  one  woman  becomes 
pregnant  and  brings  forth,  except  by  His  knowledge."  We 
maintain  that  God  has  Power  [qudra),  as  He  has  said,  (Qur. 
41,  14) ;  "and  have  they  not  seen  that  God  who  created  them 
is  stronger  than  they  ?  "  We  maintain  that  God  has  Hearing 
{sam)  and  Seeing  [basar)  and  do  not  deny  it,  as  do  the  Mu*- 
tazilites,  Jahmites  and  Kharijites.  We  teach  that  God's  Word 
{kalam)  is  uncreated,  and  that  He  has  never  created  anything 
except  by  saying  to  it,  "  Be  !  "  and  it  forthwith  became,  as  He 
has  said,  (Qur.  16,  42) ;  ''Our  speech  to  anything  when  We 
willed  it  was,  *  Be  '  and  it  was."  Nothing  exists  upon  earth, 
be  it  good  or  bad,  but  that  which  God  wills ;  but  all  things 
are  by  God's  Will  {mashya).  No  one  is  able  to  do  anything 
before  God  does  it,  neither  is  anyone  independent  of  God, 
nor  can  he  withdraw  himself  from  God's  Knowledge.  There 
is  no  Creator  but  God.  The  works  {amah)  of  creatures  are 
created  and  predestined  by  God,  as  He  said,  (Qur.  37,  94)  ; 
"  and  God  has  created  you  and  what  ye  do."  Man  is  able  to 
create  nothing ;  but  they  are  created,  as  He  has  said,  (Qur. 
35,  31) ;  "  Is  there  any  Creator  except  God? "  and  (Qur.  16,  17) 


al-ash'ari  295 

"and  is  He  who  created  like  him  who  created  not?"  and 
(Qur.  52,  35) ;  *'were  they  created  out  of  nothing,  or  are  they 
the  creators  ?  "  and  such  passages  are  many  in  the  Qur'an. 
And  God  maintains  the  believers  in  obedience  to  Him,  is 
gracious  unto  them,  cares  for  them,  reforms  them,  and  guides 
them  aright;  but  the  unbelievers  He  leads  astray,  guides 
them  not  aright,  vouchsafes  them  not  Faith  {iman),  by  His 
Grace,  as  the  People  of  error  and  pride  maintain.  For  should 
He  be  gracious  unto  them  and  help  them  aright,  then  would 
they  be  pious,  and  should  He  guide  them  aright,  then  would 
they  allow  themselves  to  be  guided  aright,  as  He  has  said, 
(Qur.  7,  177) ;  ''whom  God  guideth  aright,  he  allows  himself 
to  be  guided  aright,  and  whom  He  leads  astray,  they  are  the 
losers."  God  is  able  to  help  the  unbelieving  aright  and  to 
be  gracious  unto  them,  so  that  they  shall  become  believing, 
but  He  wills  that  they  shall  be  unbelieving  as  is  known.  For 
He  has  made  them  impervious  to  all  help  and  sealed  their 
hearts.  Good  and  Evil  happen  according  to  the  Destiny  {qada) 
and  Decree  [qadar)  of  God  for  good  and  evil,  for  the  sweet 
and  the  bitter.  We  know  that  the  misfortune  that  befalls  us 
is  not  in  order  that  we  may  go  astray,  and  that  the  good  fort- 
une which  befalls  us  is  not  in  order  that  we  may  go  aright. 
We  have  no  control  over  that  which  is  good  or  hurtful  to  us, 
except  so  far  as  God  wills.  We  flee  from  our  anxieties  to  God 
and  commit  at  all  times  our  distress  and  poverty  to  Him.  We 
teach  that  the  Qur'an  is  God's  Word,  and  that  it  is  uncreated, 
and  that  whosoever  says  that  it  is  created  is  an  unbeliever 
{kafir).  We  believe  that  God  at  the  Day  of  Kesurrection 
{yawm  al-qiyama)  will  be  visible  to  the  eyes,  as  the  moon  is 
seen  upon  the  night  of  the  full  moon  ;  the  believers  will  see 
Him,  according  to  traditions  which  have  come  down  from  the 
Prophet.  We  teach  that  while  the  believers  will  see  Him, 
the  unbelievers  will  be  separated  from  Him  by  a  wall  of  divis- 
ion, as  God  has  said,  (Qur.  83,  15) ;  "Surely  not!  They  will 
be  separated  from  their  Lord,  upon  that  Day."  We  teach  that 
Moses  besought  God  that  he  might  see  Him  in  this  world  ; 
then  God  revealed  Himself  to  the  mountain  and  turned  it  into 


296  APPENDIX  I 

dust  and  taught  Moses  thereby  that  he  could  not  see  Him  in 
this  world  (Qur.  7,  139).  We  are  of  the  opinion  that  we  may 
not  accuse  anyone  of  unbelief  (A:w/r),  who  prays  towards  Mec- 
ca, on  account  of  sin  committed  by  him,  such  as  unchastity, 
theft,  wine  drinking,  as  the  Kharijites  believe,  who  judge  that 
these  thereby  become  unbelievers.  We  teach  that  whoever 
commits  a  great  sin  [kabira),  or  anything  like  it,  holding  it 
to  be  allowed,  is  an  unbeliever,  since  he  does  not  believe  in 
its  prohibition.  We  teach  that  Islam  is  a  wider  idea  than 
Faith  [iman),  so  that  not  every  Islam  is  Faith.  We  believe 
that  God  turns  the  hearts  upside  down,  and  holds  them 
between  two  of  His  fingers,  that  He  lays  the  heavens  upon  a 
finger  and  the  earth  upon  a  finger,  according  to  the  tradition 
from  the  Prophet.  We  believe  that  God  will  not  leave  in 
Hell  any  of  those  who  confess  His  Unity  (muwakhid)  and  hold 
fast  to  the  Faith,  and  that  there  is  no  Hell  for  him  whom  the 
Prophet  has  by  his  witness  appointed  to  Paradise.  We  hope 
for  Paradise  for  sinners  and  fear  on  their  account,  that  thev 
will  be  punished  in  Hell.  We  teach  that  God  will  release  a 
few  out  of  Hell,  on  account  of  Muhammad's  intercession 
{shafa'a)  after  they  have  been  scorched  there.  We  believe  in 
the  punishment  of  the  grave.  We  believe  that  the  Tank 
Qiawd)  and  the  Balance  are  Verities :  that  the  Bridge  as-Sirat 
is  a  Verity  ;  that  the  Arousing  (baHh)  after  death  is  a  Verity ; 
that  God  will  set  up  His  creatures  in  a  place  {mmvqif)  and  will 
hold  a  reckoning  with  the  Believers.  *  We  believe  that  Faith 
(iman)  consists  in  word  [qawl)  and  in  work  [amal)  and  that 
it  increases  and  diminishes.  We  trust  in  the  sound  Tra- 
ditions handed  down  from  the  Apostle  of  God,  which  trust- 
worthy people  {thiqat),  just  man  from  just  man,  up  to  the 
Apostle,  have  transmitted.     We  hold  by  the  love  of  the  early 

*  For  Muslim  eschatology  reference  may  still  be  made  to  Sale's 
introduction  to  the  Qur'an,  §  4.  The  punishment  of  the  grave  is 
what,  in  the  case  of  unbelievers,  follows  the  inquisition  by  the  two 
angels  Munkar  and  Nakir;  see  on  them  Lane's  Modern  Egyptians^ 
chap,  xxviii;  on  the  whole  subject,  see  translations  by  Gautier  and 
Wolff  and  tractate  by  Ruling  (Bibliography,  p.  367). 


AL-ASH'AKI  297 

Believers  (salaf),  whom  God  cliose  to  be  Companions  to  the 
Prophet,  and  we  praise  them  with  the  praise  with  which  God 
praised  them,  and  we  carry  on  their  succession.     We  assert 
that  the  Imam  succeeding  the  Apostle  of  God  was  Abu  Bakr ; 
that  God  through  him  made  the  Religion  {din)  mighty,  and 
caused  him  to  conquer  the  Apostates  [murtadds).     The  Mus- 
lims made  him  their  Imam,  just  as  Muhammad  had  made  him 
Imam  at  prayers.     Then  followed  [as  legal  Imam]  Umar  ibn 
al-Khattab ;   then  Uthman  ibn  Aflfan ;  his  murderers  killed 
him  out  of  wickedness  and  enmity ;  then  Ali  ibn  Abi  Talib. 
These  are  the  Imams  after  the  Apostle,  and  their  Khalifate  is 
that  of  the  Prophetic  office  {i.e.,  they  are,  though  not  prophets, 
successors  of  the  Prophet].     We  bear  witness  of  Paradise  for 
the   Ten  {al-asharatu-l-muhashshara),   to   whom   the   Apostle 
bore  witness  of  it,  and  we  carry  on  the  succession  of  the  other 
Companions  of  the  Prophet  and  hold  ourselves  far  from  that 
which  was  in  dispute  between  them.     We  hold  that  the  four 
Imams  were  in  the  true  way,  were  rightly  guided  and  excel- 
lent, so  that  no  one  equals  them  in  excellence.     We  hold  as 
true  the  traditions  which  the  People  of  Tradition  (naql)  have 
established,  concerning  the   descent  of  God  to   the  lowest 
heaven  [sama  ad-dunya),   and  that  the  Lord  will  say,    *'  Is 
there  a  supplicant  ?    Is  there  a  seeker  for  forgiveness  ?  "  and 
the  rest  of  that  which  they  have  handed  down  and  established, 
contrary  to  that  which  the  mistaken  and  misled  opine.     We 
ground  ourselves  in  our  opposition  on  the  Qur'an,  the  Sunna 
of  the  Prophet,  the  agreement  of  the  Muslims  and  what  is  in 
accordance  therewith,  but  put   forth  no  novelty  (bid'a)  not 
sanctioned  by  God,  and  opine  of  God  nothing  that  we  have 
not  been  taught.     We  teach  that  God  will  come  on  the  Day 
of  Resurrection,  as  He  has  said,   (Qur.  89,  23) ;  *'  When  the 
earth  shall  be  turned  to  dust,  and  the  Lord  shall  appear  and 
the  angels,  rank  on  rank,"  and  that  God  is  near  to  His  ser- 
vants, in  what  way  {kayfa)  He  wills,  as  He  has  said,  (Qur.  50, 
15)  ;   "  and  We  are  nearer  to  him  than  the  artery  in  his  neck ; " 
and  (Qur.  53,  8) ;  '*  Then  He  approached  and  came  near  and 
was  two  bows'  length  distant  or  even  nearer."     To  our  Relig- 


298  APPENDIX   I 

ion  (din)  belongs  further,  that  we  on  Fridays  and  on  festival 
days  pray  behind  every  person,  pious  and  profane— so  are  the 
conditions  for  congregational  prayers,  as  it  is  handed  down 
from  Abd  Allah  ibn  Umar  that  he  prayed  behind  al-Hajjaj. 
To  our  Beligion  belongs  the  wiping  {mash)  of  the  inner  boots 
{khuffs)  upon  a  journey  and  at  home,  in  contradiction  to  the 
deniers  of  this.*  "We  uphold  the  prayer  for  peace  for  the 
Imams  of  the  Muslims,  submission  to  their  oflSce,  and  main- 
tain the  error  of  those  who  hold  it  right  to  rise  against  them 
whenever  there  may  be  apparent  in  them  a  falling  away  from 
right.  We  are  against  armed  rebellion  against  them  and  civil 
war. 

We  believe  in  the  appearance  of  anti-Christ  (ad-Dajjal)  ac- 
cording to  the  tradition  handed  down  from  the  Prophet  ;  in 
the  punishment  of  the  grave,  and  in  Munkar  and  Nakir  and  in 
their  questions  to  the  buried  in  their  graves.  We  hold  the 
tradition  of  the  journey  to  heaven  [mi'raj,  Qur.  17)  of  Mu- 
hammad as  true,  and  declare  many  of  the  visions  in  sleep  to 
be  true,  and  we  say  that  there  is  an  explanation  for  them. 
We  uphold  the  alms  for  the  dead  of  the  Muslims  and  prayer 
for  them,  and  believe  that  God  will  help  them  therewith.  We 
hold  as  true  that  there  are  enchanters  in,  the  world,  and  that 
enchantment  is  and  exists.  We  hold  as  a  religious  duty  the 
prayer  which  is  held  over  the  dead  of  those  who  have  prayed 
toward  Mecca,  whether  they  have  been  believers  or  godless ; 
we  uphold  also  their  right  of  testation.  We  acknowledge 
that  Paradise  and  Hell  are  created,  and  that  whoever  dies  or 
is  killed,  dies  or  is  killed  at  his  appointed  time  (ajal) ;  that 
the  articles  of  sustenance  (j-izq)  from  God,  with  which  He 
sustains  His  creatures,  are  permitted  (kalal)  and  forbidden 
(haram) ;  f  that  Satan  makes  evil  suggestions  to  men,  and  puts 

*  This,  one  of  the  dividing  questions  between  Sunnites  and  Shi- 
'ites,  belongs  to  theology  as  well  as  law.  See  p.  314  and  Goldziher, 
Zur  Literaturgeschichte  der  Si''a^  p.  87. 

f  The  Mu'tazilites  held  that  articles  of  sustenance  of  a  forbidden 
nature,  such  as  pork  or  wine,  could  not  be  called  rizq'in  this  tech- 
nical sense  ;  that  God  could  not  so  use  them.     The  orthodox  re- 


al-ash'aki  299 

them  in  doubt,  and  causes  them  to  be  possessed,  contrary  to 
that  which  the  Mu'tazilites  and  the  Jahmites  maintain,  as  God 
said,  (Qur.  2,  276)  ;  "  Those  who  take  usury  will  [at  the  Resur- 
rection] stand  there  like  one  whom  Satan  causes  to  be  pos- 
sessed by  madness,"  and  (Qur.  114,  4  fif.) ;  "I  take  my  refuge 
in  God,  from  the  evil  suggestion,  from  the  stealthy  one  who 
makes  suggestions  in  the  hearts  of  men,  by  means  of  men  and 
Jinn."  We  affirm  that  God  may  distinguish  the  pious  by 
signs  which  He  manifests  through  them.  Our  teaching  con- 
cerning the  little  children  of  the  polytheists  (mushriqs)  is  this, 
that  God  will  kindle  a  fire  in  the  other  world  for  them,  and 
will  say,  "Run  in  there  ;  " — as  the  tradition  says.*  We  be- 
lieve that  God  knows  what  men  do  and  what  they  will  to  do, 
what  happens  and  how  that  which  does  not  happen,  if  it 
should  happen,  would  happen.  We  believe  in  the  obedience 
of  the  Imams  and  in  their  counsel  of  the  Muslims.  We  con- 
sider right  the  separation  from  every  inciter  to  innovation 
(bld'a)  and  the  turning  aside  from  the  People  of  wandering 
desires  {ahl  al-ahwa) . — Translated  from  the  Arabic  text  in  Spitta^s 
Zur  Geschichte  al-As'ari's,  pp.  133  ff. 

torted  that  a  man  might  live  his  life  out  on  forbidden  things ;  had 
he  then  been  independent  of  God  as  to  his  sustenance  ?  The 
Mu'tazilites  defined  rizq  as  "  a  possession  which  its  possessor  eats  " 
and  as  "  that  from  which  one  is  not  hindered  from  profiting  "  ;  the 
orthodox,  as  a  name  for  that  which  God  sends  to  man  and  the  other 
animals  and  they  eat  it  and  profit  by  it. 

*  Some  will  run  into  the  fire  and  find  themselves  immediately  in 
Paradise  ;  these  would  have  been  believers.  Others  will  refuse, 
and  will  be  treated  as  their  parents. 


300  APPENDIX   I 

IV 

A   SHOBT  CREED  BY  AL-GHAZZALI 

An  exposition  of  the  Creed  of  the  People  of  the  Sunna  on  the  two  Words 
of  Witnessing  (kalimatan  ash-shahada)  which  form  one  of  the 
Foundations  of  Islam. 

[Intended  to  be  committed  to  memory  by  children.  It  forms  the 
first  section  of  the  second  book  of  his  Ihya^  vol.  ii,  pp.  17-42  of 
edit,  of  Cairo  with  commentary  of  the  Sayyid  Murtada.] 

W'e  say— and  in  God  is  our  trust — Praise  belongeth  unto 
God,  the  Beginner,  the  Bringer  back,  the  Doer  of  what  He 
willeth,  the  Lord  of  the  Glorious  Throne  and  of  Mighty  Grasp, 
the  Guider  of  His  chosen  creatures  to  the  right  path  and  to  the 
tme  way,  the  Granter  of  benefits  to  them  after  the  witness  to 
the  Unity  [tawhid)  by  guarding  their  articles  of  belief  from 
obscurities  of  doubt  and  opposition,  He  that  bringeth  them  to 
follow  His  Apostle,  the  Chosen  one  (al-Mustafa),  and  to  imi- 
tate the  traces  of  his  Companions,  the  most  honored,  through 
His  aid  and  right  guidance  revealed  to  them  in  His  essence 
and  His  works  by  His  beautiful  qualities  which  none  perceives, 
save  he  who  inclines  his  ear.  He  is  the  witness  who  maketh 
known  to  them  that  He  in  His  essence  is  One  without  any 
partner  (sharik).  Single  without  any  similar,  Eternal  without 
any  opposite,  Separate  without  any  like.  He  is  One,  Prior 
(qadim)  with  nothing  before  Him,  from  eternity  (azali)  with- 
out any  beginning,  abiding  in  existence  with  none  after  Him, 
to  eternity  {abadi)  without  any  end,  subsisting  without  ending, 
abiding  without  termination.  He  hath  not  ceased  and  He 
will  not  cease  to  be  described  with  glorious  epithets  ;  finish- 
ing and  ending,  through  the  cutting  off  of  the  ages  and  the 
terminating  of  allotted  times,  have  no  rule  over  Him,  but  He 
is  the  First  and  Last,  the  External  and  the  Internal,  and  He 
knoweth  everything. 

"We  witness  that  He  is  not  a  body  possessing  form,  nor  a 
substance  possessing  bounds  and  limits :  He  does  not  resemble 


AL-GHAZZALI  301 

bodies,  either  in  limitation  or  in  accepting  division.  He  is 
not  a  substance  and  substances  do  not  exist  in  Him ;  and  He 
is  not  an  accident  and  accidents  do  not  exist  in  Him,  nay  He 
does  not  resemble  an  entity,  and  no  entity  resembles  Him ; 
nothing  is  like  Him  and  He  is  not  like  anything ;  measure 
does  not  bound  Him  and  boundaries  do  not  contain  Him  ;  the 
directions  do  not  surround  Him  and  neither  the  earth  nor  the 
heavens  are  on  different  sides  of  Him.  Lo,  He  is  seated  firmly 
upon  His  Throne  {arsh),  after  the  manner  which  He  has  said, 
and  in  the  sense  in  which  He  willed  a  being  seated  firmly 
{istiwa),  which  is  far  removed  from  contact  and  fixity  of  loca- 
tion and  being  established  and  being  enveloped  and  being  re- 
moved. The  Throne  does  not  carry  Him,  but  the  Throne  and 
those  that  carry  it  are  carried  by  the  grace  of  His  power  and 
mastered  by  His  grasp.  He  is  above  the  Throne  and  the 
Heavens  and  above  everything  unto  the  limit  of  the  Pleiades, 
with  an  aboveness  which  does  not  bring  Him  nearer  to  the 
Throne  and  the  Heavens,  just  as  it  does  not  make  Him  further 
from  the  earth  and  the  Pleiades.  Nay,  He  is  exalted  by  de- 
grees from  the  Throne  and  the  Heavens,  just  as  He  is  exalted 
by  degrees  from  the  earth  and  the  Pleiades ;  and  He,  in  spite 
of  that,  is  near  to  every  entity  and  is  "nearer  to  a  creature 
than  the  artery  of  his  neck  "  (Qur.  50,  15),  and  He  witnesseth 
everything,  since  His  nearness  does  not  resemble  the  nearness 
of  bodies,  just  as  His  essence  does  not  resemble  the  essence 
of  bodies.  He  does  not  exist  in  anything,  just  as  nothing  ex- 
ists in  Him :  He  has  exalted  Himself  far  therefrom  that  a 
place  should  contain  Him,  just  as  He  has  sanctified  Himself 
far  therefrom  that  time  should  limit  Him.  Nay,  He  was  be- 
fore He  had  created  Time  and  Place  and  He  is  now  above  that 
which  He  was  above,  and  distinct  from  His  creatures  through 
His  qualities.  There  is  not  in  His  essence  His  equal,  nor  in 
His  equal  His  essence.  He  is  far  removed  from  change  of 
state  or  of  place.  Events  have  no  place  in  Him,  and  mishaps 
do  not  befall  him.  Nay,  He  does  not  cease,  through  His 
glorious  epithets,  to  be  far  removed  from  changing,  and 
through  His  perfect  qualities  to  be  independent  of  perfecting 


302  APPENDIX   I 

increase.  The  existence  of  His  essence  is  known  by  reason  ; 
His  essence  is  seen  with  the  eyes,  a  benefit  from  Him  and  a 
grace  to  the  pious,  in  the  Abiding  Abode  and  a  completion  in 
beatitude  from  Him,  through  gazing  upon  His  gracious  face. 

We  witness  that  He  is  living,  powerful,  commanding,  con- 
quering ;  inadequacy  and  weakness  befall  Him  not ;  slumber 
seizes  Him  not,  nor  sleep.  Passing  away  does  not  happen  to 
Him,  nor  death.  He  is  Lord  of  the  Worlds,  the  Visible  and 
the  Invisible,  that  of  Force  and  that  of  Might ;  He  possesses 
Eule  and  Conquest  and  Creation  and  Command  ;  the  heavens 
are  rolled  in  His  right  hand  and  the  created  things  are  over- 
come in  His  grasp ;  He  is  separate  in  creating  and  inventing ; 
He  is  one  in  bringing  into  existence  and  innovating ;  He 
created  the  creation  and  their  works  and  decreed  their  sus- 
tenance and  their  terms  of  life  ;  not  a  decreed  thing  escapes 
His  grasp  and  the  mutations  of  things  are  not  distant  from 
His  power ;  the  things  which  He  hath  decreed  cannot  be 
reckoned  and  the  things  which  He  knoweth  have  no  end. 

We  witness  that  He  knoweth  all  the  things  that  can  be 
known,  comprehending  that  which  happeneth  from  the  bounds 
of  the  earths  unto  the  topmost  heavens ;  no  grain  in  the  earth 
or  the  heavens  is  distant  from  His  knowledge.  Yea,  He 
knows  the  creeping  of  the  black  ant  upon  the  rugged  rock  in 
a  dark  night,  and  He  perceives  the  movement  of  the  mote  in 
the  midst  of  the  air  ;  He  knows  the  secret  and  the  concealed 
and  has  knowledge  of  the  suggestions  of  the  minds  and  the 
movements  of  the  thoughts  and  the  concealed  things  of  the 
inmost  parts,  by  a  knowledge  which  is  prior  from  eternity  ;  He 
has  not  ceased  to  be  describable  by  it,  from  the  ages  of  the 
ages,  not  by  a  knowledge  which  renews  itself  and  arises  in 
His  essence  by  arrival  and  removal. 

We  witness  that  He  is  a  Wilier  of  the  things  that  are,  a 
Director  of  the  things  that  happen  ;  there  does  not  come 
about  in  the  world,  seen  or  unseen,  little  or  much,  small  or 
great,  good  or  evil,  advantage  or  disadvantage,  faith  or  un- 
belief, knowledge  or  ignorance,  success  or  loss,  increase  or 
diminution,  obedience  or  rebellion,  except  by  His  will.     What 


AL-GHAZZALI  303 

He  wills  is,  and  what  He  wills  not  is  not.  Not  a  glance  of  one 
who  looks,  or  a  slip  of  one  who  thinks  is  outside  of  His  will : 
He  is  the  Creator,  the  Bringer  back,  the  Doer  of  that  which 
He  wills.  There  is  no  opponent  of  His  command  and  no  re- 
peater of  His  destiny  and  no  refuge  for  a  creature  from  dis- 
obeying Him,  except  by  His  help  and  His  mercy,  and  no 
strength  to  a  creature  to  obey  Him  except  by  His  wilL  Even 
though  mankind  and  the  Jinn  and  the  Angels  and  the  Shaytans 
were  to  unite  to  remove  a  single  grain  in  the  world  or  to  bring 
it  to  rest  without  His  will,  they  would  be  too  weak  for  that. 
His  will  subsists  in  His  essence  as  one  of  His  qualities ;  He 
hath  not  ceased  to  be  described  through  it  as  a  Wilier,  in  His 
infinity,  of  the  existence  of  things  at  their  appointed  times 
which  He  hath  decreed.  So  they  come  into  existence  at  their 
appointed  times  even  as  He  has  willed  in  His  infinity  without 
precedence  or  sequence.  They  happen  according  to  the  agree- 
ment of  His  knowledge  and  His  will,  without  exchange  or 
change  in  planning  of  things,  nor  with  arranging  of  thoughts 
or  awaiting  of  time,  and  therefore  one  thing  does  not  distract 
Him  from  another. 

And  we  witness  that  He  is  a  Hearer  and  a  Seer.  He  hears 
and  sees,  and  no  audible  thing  is  distant  from  His  hearing,  and 
no  visible  thing  is  far  from  His  seeing,  however  fine  it  may 
be.  Distance  does  not  curtain  off  His  hearing  and  darkness 
does  not  dull  His  seeing ;  He  sees  without  eyeball  or  eyelid, 
and  hears  without  earholes  or  ears,  just  as  He  knows  without  a 
brain  and  seizes  without  a  limb  and  creates  without  an  instru- 
ment, since  His  qualities  do  not  resemble  the  qualities  of 
created  things,  just  as  His  essence  does  not  resemble  the  es- 
sences of  created  things. 

And  we  witness  that  He  speaks,  commanding,  forbidding, 
praising,  threatening,  with  a  speech  from  all  eternity,  prior, 
subsisting  in  His  essence  not  resembling  the  speech  of  created 
things.  It  is  not  a  sound  which  originates  through  the  slip- 
ping out  of  air,  or  striking  of  bodies  ;  nor  is  it  a  letter  which 
is  separated  off  by  closing  down  a  lip  or  moving  a  tongue. 
And  the  Qur'an  and  the  Tawrat  [the  Law  of  Moses]  and  the 


304  APPENDIX  I 

Injil  [the  Gospel]  and  the  Zabbur  [the  Psalms]  are  His  book 
revealed  to  His  Apostles.  And  the  Qur'an  is  repeated  by 
tongues,  written  in  copies,  preserved  in  hearts :  yet  it,  in  spite 
of  that,  is  prior,  subsisting  in  the  essence  of  God,  not  subject 
to  division  and  separation  through  being  transferred  to  hearts 
and  leaves.  And  Musa  heard  the  speech  of  God  without  a 
sound  and  without  a  letter,  just  as  the  pious  see  the  essence  of 
God,  in  the  other  world,  without  a  substance  or  an  attribute. 

And  since  He  has  those  qualities,  He  is  Living,  Knowing, 
Powerful,  a  Wilier,  a  Hearer,  a  Seer,  a  Speaker,  through  Life, 
Power,  Knowledge,  Will,  Hearing,  Seeing,  Speech,  not  by  a 
thing  separated  from  His  essence. 

We  witness  that  there  is  no  entity  besides  Him,  except  what 
is  originated  from  His  action  and  proceeds  from  His  justice, 
after  the  most  beautiful  and  perfect  and  complete  and  just  of 
ways.  He  is  wise  in  His  actions,  just  in  His  determinations ; 
there  is  no  analogy  between  His  justice  and  the  justice  of 
creatures,  since  tyranny  is  conceivable  in  the  case  of  a  creature, 
when  he  deals  with  the  property  of  some  other  than  himself, 
but  tyranny  is  not  conceivable  in  the  case  of  God.  For  He 
never  encounters  any  property  in  another  besides  Himself,  so 
that  His  dealing  with  it  might  be  tyranny.  Everything  besides 
Him,  consisting  of  men  and  Jinn  and  Angels  and  Shaytans 
and  the  heavens  and  the  earth  and  animals  and  plants  and 
inanimate  things  and  substance  and  attribute  and  things  per- 
ceived and  things  felt,  is  an  originated  thing,  which  He 
created  by  His  power,  before  any  other  had  created  it,  after 
it  had  not  existed,  and  which  He  invented  after  that  it  had 
not  been  a  thing,  since  He  in  eternity  was  an  entity  by  Him- 
self, and  there  was  not  along  with  Him  any  other  than  He. 
So  He  originated  the  creation  thereafter,  by  way  of  manifesta- 
tion of  His  power,  and  verification  of  that  which  had  preceded 
of  His  Will,  and  of  that  which  existed  in  eternity  of  His 
Word ;  not  because  He  had  any  lack  of  it  or  need  of  it.  And 
He  is  gracious  in  creating  and  in  making  for  the  first  times 
and  in  imposing  of  duty— not  of  necessity— and  He  is  gener- 
ous in  benefiting ;  and  well-doing  and  gracious  helping  be- 


AL-GHAZZALI  305 

long  to  Him,  since  He  is  able  to  bring  upon  His  creatures 
different  kinds  of  punishment  and  to  test  them  with  different 
varieties  of  pains  and  ailments.  And  if  He  did  that,  it  would 
be  justice  on  His  part,  and  would  not  be  a  vile  action  or 
tyranny  in  Him.  He  rewardeth  His  believing  creatures  for 
their  acts  of  obedience  by  a  decision  which  is  of  generosity 
and  of  promise  and  not  of  right  and  of  obligation,  since  no 
particular  action  toward  anyone  is  incumbent  upon  Him,  and 
tyranny  is  inconceivable  in  Him,  and  no  one  possesses  a  right 
against  Him.  And  His  right  to  acts  of  obedience  is  binding 
upon  the  creatures  because  He  has  made  it  binding  through 
the  tongues  of  His  prophets,  not  by  reason  alone.  But  He 
sent  apostles  and  manifested  their  truth  by  plain  miracles, 
and  they  brought  His  commands  and  forbiddings  and  promis- 
ings  and  threatenings.  So,  belief  in  them  as  to  what  they 
have  brought  is  incumbent  upon  the  creation. 

The  Second  Word  of  Witnessing  is  witnessing  that  the 
apostolate  belongs  to  the  apostle,  and  that  God  sent  the  un- 
lettered Qurayshite  prophet,  Muhammad,  with  his  apostolate 
to  the  totality  of  Arabs  and  foreigners  and  Jinn  and  men. 
And  He  abrogated  by  his  law  the  other  laws,  except  so  much 
of  them  as  He  confirmed ;  and  made  him  excellent  over  the 
rest  of  the  prophets  and  made  him  the  Lord  of  Mankind  and 
declared  incomplete  the  Faith  that  consists  in  witnessing  the 
Unity,  which  is  saying,  "There  is  no  god  except  God,"  so 
long  as  there  is  not  joined  to  that  a  witnessing  to  the  Apostle, 
which  is  saying,  "  Muhammad  is  the  Apostle  of  God."  And 
He  made  obligatory  upon  the  creation  belief  in  him,  as  to  all 
which  he  narrated  concerning  the  things  of  this  world  and  the 
next.  And  that  He  would  not  accept  the  faith  of  a  creature, 
so  long  as  he  did  not  believe  in  that  which  the  Prophet  nar- 
rated concerning  things  after  death.  The  first  of  that  is  the 
question  of  Munkar  and  Nakir ;  these  are  two  awful  and  ter- 
rible beings  who  will  cause  the  creature  to  sit  up  in  his  grave, 
complete,  both  soul  and  body ;  and  they  will  ask  him,  **  Who 
is  thy  Lord,  and  what  is  thy  religion  {dhi),  and  who  is  thy 
Prophet  ? "     They  are  the  two  testers  in  the  grave  and  their 


306  APPENDIX  I 

questioning  is  the  first  testing  after  death.  And  that  he 
should  believe  in  the  punishment  of  the  grave — that  it  is  a 
Verity  and  that  its  judgment  upon  the  body  and  the  soul  is 
just,  according  to  what  God  wills.  And  that  he  should  be- 
lieve in  the  Balance — it  with  the  two  scales  and  the  tongue, 
the  magnitude  of  which  is  like  unto  the  stages  of  the  heavens 
and  the  earth.  In  it,  deeds  are  weighed  by  the  power  of  God 
Most  High  ;  and  its  weights  in  that  day  will  be  of  the  weight 
of  motes  and  mustard  seeds,  to  show  the  exactitude  of  its  jus- 
tice. The  leaves  of  the  good  deeds  will  be  placed  in  a  beauti- 
ful form  in  the  scale  of  light ;  and  then  the  Balance  will  be 
weighed  down  by  them  according  to  the  measure  of  their  de- 
gree with  God,  by  the  grace  of  God,  And  the  leaves  of  evil 
deeds  will  be  cast  in  a  vile  form  into  the  scale  of  darkness, 
and  the  Balance  will  be  light  with  them,  through  the  justice 
of  God.  And  that  he  should  believe  that  the  Bridge  {assirat) 
is  a  Verity ;  it  is  a  bridge  stretched  over  the  back  of  Hell 
(jahannam),  sharper  than  a  sword  and  finer  than  a  hair.  The 
feet  of  the  unbelievers  slip  upon  it,  by  the  decree  of  God, 
and  fall  with  them  into  the  Fire.  But  the  feet  of  believers 
stand  firm  upon  it,  by  the  grace  of  God,  and  so  they  pass  into 
the  Abiding  Abode.  And  that  he  should  believe  in  the  Tank 
(hawd),  to  which  the  people  shall  go  down,  the  Tank  of  Muh- 
hammad  from  which  the  believers  shall  drink  before  entering 
the  Garden  and  after  passing  the  Bridge.  Whoever  drinks 
of  it  a  single  draught  will  never  thirst  again  thereafter.  Its 
breadth  is  a  journey  of  a  month ;  its  water  is  whiter  than  milk 
and  sweeter  than  honey ;  around  it  are  ewers  in  numbers  like 
the  stars  of  heaven  ;  into  it  flow  two  canals  from  al-Kawtliar 
(Qur.  1 08).  And  that  he  should  believe  in  the  Reckoning 
and  in  the  distinctions  between  men  in  it,  him  with  whom  it 
will  go  hard  in  the  Reckoning  and  him  to  whom  compas- 
sion will  be  shown  therein,  and  him  who  enters  the  Garden 
without  any  reckoning, — these  are  the  honored  {muqarrab). 
God  Most  High  will  ask  whomsoever  He  will  of  the  prophets, 
concerning  the  carrying  of  His  message,  and  whomsoever  He 
will  of  the  unbelievers,  concerning  the  rejection  of  the  mes- 


AL-GHAZZALI  307 

sengers ;  and  He  will  ask  the  innovators  {mubtadi's)  concern- 
ing the  Sunna;  and  the  Muslims  concerning  works.  And 
that  he  should  believe  that  the  attestors  of  God's  Unity 
(muivahhids)  will  be  brought  forth  from  the  Fire,  after  ven- 
geance has  been  taken  on  them,  so  that  there  will  not  remain 
in  Hell  an  attestor  of  God's  Unity.  And  that  he  should  be- 
lieve in  the  intercession  {sha/a'a)  of  the  prophets,  next  of  the 
learned  (ulama),  next  of  the  martyrs,  next  of  the  rest  of  the 
believers — each  according  to  his  dignity  and  rank  with  God 
Most  High.  And  he  who  remains  of  the  believers,  and  has  no 
intercessor,  shall  be  brought  forth  of  the  grace  of  God,  whose 
are  Might  and  Majesty.  So  there  shall  not  abide  eternally  in 
the  Fire  a  single  believer,  but  whoever  has  in  his  heart  the 
weight  of  a  single  grain  of  faith  shall  be  brought  forth  there- 
from .  And  that  he  should  confess  the  excellence  of  the  Com- 
panions— May  God  be  well  pleased  with  them ! — and  their 
rank ;  and  that  the  most  excellent  of  mankind,  after  the 
Prophet,  is  Abu  Bakr,  next  Umar,  next  Uthman,  next  Ali — 
May  God  be  well  pleased  with  them !  And  that  he  should 
think  well  of  all  the  Companions  and  should  praise  them  like 
as  he  praises  God,  whose  are  Might  and  Majesty,  and  His 
Apostles.  All  this  is  of  that  which  has  been  handed  down  in 
traditions  from  the  Prophet  and  in  narratives  from  the  follow- 
ers. He  who  confesses  all  this,  relying  upon  it,  is  of  the 
People  of  the  Truth  and  the  Company  of  the  Sunna,  and  hath 
separated  himself  from  the  band  of  error  and  the  sect  of 
innovation  {bid'a).  So  we  ask  from  God  perfection  of  cer- 
tainty and  firm  standing  in  the  Faith  (dm)  for  us  and  for  all 
Muslims  through  His  compassion. — lo  !  He  is  the  Most  Com- 
passionate ! — and  may  the  blessing  of  God  be  upon  our  Lord 
Muhammad  and  upon  every  chosen  creature. 


308  APPENDIX   I 


ABTIOLES  OF  BELIEF  OF  NAJM   AD-DIN   ABU  HAFS   AN-NASAFI 

[A  Mataridite  who  d.  a.h,  537.  This  creed  is  still  used  as  a 
text-book  in  schools.  It  is  translated  from  Cureton's  edition  (Lon- 
don, 1843)  with  the  assistance  of  at-Taftazani's  commentary  (Con- 
stantinople, A.H.  1310).  The  asterisks  mark  the  points  on  which 
al-Mataridi  differed  from  al-Ash'ari.] 

In  the  name  of  God,  the  me'-cif  ul  Compassionator. 

The  Shaykh,  the  Imam,  Najm  ad-Din  Abu  Hafs  Umar  ibn 
Muhammad  ibn  Ahmad  an-Nasafi — may  God  have  mercy  upon 
him ! — said  ; — The  People  of  Verity,  contradicting  the  Scep- 
tics \Sufistiqiya,  i.e.,  Sophists]  say  that  the  real  natures  of 
things  are  validly  established  and  that  the  science  of  them  is 
certain. 

Further,  that  the  sources  of  knowledge  for  mankind  are 
three  :  the  sound  Senses,  true  Narration  {khdbar)^  and  Reason 
{aql).  As  for  the  Senses,  they  are  five:  Hearing,  Sight, 
Smell,  Taste  and  Touch,  and  by  each  sense  you  are  informed 
concerning  that  for  "which  it  is  appointed.  True  Narration, 
again,  is  of  two  kinds.  The  one  is  Narration  handed  down 
along  a  large  number  of  lines  of  tradition  (mutaivatir);  that 
is,  it  is  established  by  the  tongues  of  a  number  of  people  of 
whom  we  cannot  imagine  that  they  would  agree  in  a  lie.  It 
compels  a  knowledge  which  is  of  necessity  {daruri),  such  as 
the  knowledge  of  departed  kings  in  past  times  and  of  distant 
countries.  And  the  second  is  Narration  by  the  Apostle  {rasul) 
aided  by  miracle  [i.e.,  Muhammad],  and  it  compels  deduced 
knowledge  {istidlali),  and  the  knowledge  established  by  it 
resembles  in  certainty  and  fixity  the  knowledge  established 
by  necessity. 

Then  as  for  Reason,  it  is  a  cause  of  knowledge  also  ;  and 
whatever  is  established  by  intuition  [hadaha)  is  of  necessity, 
as  the  knowledge  that  everything  is  greater  than  its  parts ; 
and  whatever  is  established  by  inference  is  acquired  knowl- 
edge {iktisabi),  as  the  existence  of  fire  from  the  appearance  of 


AN-NASAFI  309 

smoke.     And  the  Inner  Light  {ilham)  with  the  People  of  Ver- 
ity is  not  one  of  the  causes  of  knowledge  as  to  the  soundness 

of  anything,  t 

Further,  the  world  in  the  totality  of  its  parts  is  a  thing 
originated  {muhdath),  in  that  it  consists  of  Substances  (ai/7is) 
and  Attributes  [arads).  The  Substances  are  what  exist  in 
themselves,  and  a  substance  is  either  a  compound,  that  is  a 
body  ijism),  or  not  compounded  like  an  essence  [jawhar)^ 
namely  a  division  that  is  not  further  divided.  And  the  attri- 
butes are  what  do  not  exist  in  themselves  but  have  a  depend- 
ent existence  in  bodies  or  essences,  such  as  colors,  tastes, 
conditions  (kawns),  odors. 

The  Originator  {Muhdith)  of  the  world  is  God  Most  High, 
the  One,  the  Eternal,  the  Decreeing,  the  Knowing,  the  Hear- 
ing, the  Seeing,  the  Willing.  He  is  not  an  attribute,  nor  a 
body,  nor  an  essence,  nor  a  thing  formed,  nor  a  thing  bounded, 
nor  a  thing  numbered,  nor  a  thing  divided,  nor  a  thing  com- 
pounded, nor  a  thing  limited;  and  He  is  not  described  by 
quiddity  (makiya),  nor  by  modality  (kayfiya),  and  He  does 
not  exist  in  place  or  time,  and  there  is  nothing  that  resembles 
Him  and  nothing  that  is  outwith  His  knowledge  and  power. 

He  has  qualities  (si/at)  from  all  eternity  {azali)  existing  in 
His  essence.  They  are  not  He  nor  are  they  any  other  than 
He.  They  are  Knowledge  and  Power  and  Life  and  Strength 
and  Hearing  and  Seeing  and  Doing  and  Creating  and  Sustain- 
ing and  Speech  (kalam). 

And  He,  whose  Majesty  is  majestic,  speaks  with  a  Word 
{kalam).  This  Word  is  a  quality  from  all  eternity,  not  belong- 
ing to  the  genus  of  letters  and  sounds,  a  quality  that  is  incom- 
patible with  coming  to  silence  and  that  has  no  weakness. 

God  Most  High  speaks  with  this  Word,  commanding  and 

f  This  is  not  the  normal  doctrine  of  Islam  and  the  commentators 
have  to  explain  this  passage  away.  Consult  in  the  chapters  on  the- 
ology, the  whole  Sufi  development  and  especially  the  views  of  al- 
Ghazzali.  Al-Mataridi  was  greatly  influenced  by  Abu  Hanifa,  who 
was  hostile  to  mystics.  Notice,  too,  the  philosophical  basis  and 
beginning  of  this  creed. 


310  APPENDIX   I 

prohibiting  and  narrating.  And  the  Qur'an  is  the  uncreated 
Word  of  God,  repeated  by  our  tongues,  heard  by  our  ears, 
written  in  our  copies,  preserved  in  oui'  hearts,  yet  not  simply 
a  transient  state  {hal)  in  these  [i.e.,  the  tongues,  ears,  etc.]. 
And  Creating  [takwin]  is  a  quality  of  God  Most  High  from  all 
eternity,  and  it  is  the  Creating  of  the  world  and  of  eveiy  one 
of  its  parts  at  the  time  of  its  becoming  existent,  and  this 
quality  of  Creating  is  not  the  thing  created,  according  to  our 
opinion."^  And  Willing  is  a  quality  of  God  Most  High  from 
all  eternity,  existing  in  His  essence. 

And  that  there  is  a  Vision  {ruya)  of  God  Most  High  is 
allowed  by  reason  and  certified  by  tradition  {naql).  A  proof 
on  authority  has  come  down  with  the  affirmation  that  believ- 
ers have  a  Vision  of  God  Most  High  in  Paradise  and  that  He 
is  seen,  not  in  a  place  or  in  a  direction  or  by  facing  or  the 
joining  of  glances  or  the  placing  of  a  distance  between  him 
who  sees  and  God  Most  High. 

And  God  Most  High  is  the  Creator  of  all  actions  of  His 
creatures,  whether  of  unbelief  or  belief,  of  obedience  or  of 
rebellion ;  all  of  them  are  by  the  will  of  God  and  His  sen- 
tence and  His  conclusion  and  His  decreeing. 

And  to  His  creatures  belong  actions  of  choice  [ikhtiyar)* 
for  which  they  are  rewarded  or  punished,  and  the  good  in 
these  is  by  the  good  pleasure  of  God  {rida)  and  the  vile  in 
them  is  not  by  His  good  pleasure.* 

And  the  ability  to  do  the  action  (isiita'a)  goes  along  with 
the  action  and  is  the  essence  of  the  power  (qudra)  by  which 
the  action  takes  place,  and  this  word  "  ability  "  means  the 
soundness  of  the  causes  and  instruments  and  limbs.  And  the 
validity  of  the  imposition  of  the  task  {taklif)  is  based  upon 
this  ability,*  and  the  creature  has  not  a  task  imposed  upon 
him  that  is  not  in  his  power. 

And  the  pain  which  is  found  in  one  who  is  beaten  as  a  con- 
sequence of  being  beaten  by  any  man,  and  the  state  of  being 
broken  in  glass  as  a  consequence  of  its  being  broken  by  any 
man,  and  such  things,  all  that  is  created  by  God  Most  High, 
and  the  creature  has  no  part  in  its  creation  and  a  slain  man  is 


AN-NASAFI  311 

dead  because  his  appointed  time  {ojal)  has  come ;  and  death 
exists  in  a  slain  man  and  is  created  by  God  Most  High,  and 
the  appointed  time  is  one.f 

And  that  which  is  forbidden  Qiaram)  is  still  Sustenance 
{rizq)y  and  each  one  receives  his  own  Sustenance  whether  it 
consists  of  permitted  or  of  forbidden  things ;  and  let  no  one 
imagine  that  a  man  shall  not  eat  his  Sustenance  or  that  an- 
other than  he  shall  eat  his  Sustenance. 

And  God  leadeth  astray  whom  He  wills  and  guideth  aright 
whom  He  wills,  and  it  is  not  incumbent  upon  God  Most  High 
to  do  that  which  may  be  best  (aslah)  for  the  creature. 

The  punishment  of  the  grave  for  unbelievers  and  for  some 
rebellious  ones  of  the  believers,  and  the  bliss  of  the  obedient 
in  the  grave,  and  the  questioning  by  Munkar  and  Nakir  are 
established  by  proofs  of  authority.  And  the  Quickening  of 
the  Dead  ibaHh)  is  a  Verity,  and  the  Weighing  is  a  Verity,  and 
the  Book  is  a  Verity  and  the  Tank  {hawd)  is  a  Verity,  and 
the  Bridge,  as-Sirat,  is  a  Verity,  and_the  Garden  is  a  Verity, 
and  the  Fire  is  a  Verity,  and  they  are  both  created,  existing, 
continuing  ;  they  shall  not  pass  away  and  their  people  shall 
not  pass  away. 

A  great  sin  (kdbira)  does  not  exclude  the  creature  who  be- 
lieves from  the  Belief  {iman)  and  does  not  make  him  an  unbe- 
liever. And  God  does  not  forgive  him  who  joins  another  with 
Himself,  but  He  forgives  anything  beneath  that  to  whom  He 
wills,  of  sins  small  [saghira]  or  great. 

And  there  may  be  punishment  for  a  small  and  pardon  for  a 
great  one,  if  it  be  not  of  the  nature  of  considering  lawful  what 
is  forbidden,  for  that  is  unbelief  [hufr).  And  the  intercession 
[shafa^a)  of  the  Apostles  and  of  the  excellent  on  behalf  of 
those  who  commit  great  sins  is  established . 

f  A  sect  of  the  Mu'tazilites  held  that  a  man  could  have  two  ajals^ 
one  his  end  by  a  natural  death  appointed  by  God,  the  other  his  end 
by  a  violent  death,  not  so  appointed.  The  "Philosophers"  are 
said  to  have  held  that  one  ajal  would  be  when  the  mechanism  of  the 
body  ceased  to  work  through  tlie  failing  of  its  essential  moisture 
and  heat,  and  another  ajal  might  come  through  sicknesses  and  ac- 
cident generally. 


312  APPENDIX   I 

And  those  believers  who  commit  great  sins  do  not  remain 
eternally  in  the  Fire  although  they  die  without  repentance. 

Belief  {iman)  is  assent  (tasdiq)  to  that  which  comes  from 
God  and  confession  [iqrar)  of  it.  Then,  as  for  Works  {amal), 
they  are  acts  of  obedience  and  gradually  increase  of  them- 
selves, but  Belief  does  not  increase  and  does  not  diminish. 
And  Belief  and  al-Islam  are  one.*  And  whenever  assent  and 
confession  are  found  in  a  creature,  it  is  right  that  he  should 
say,  "  I  am  a  believer  in  truth."  And  it  is  not  fitting  that  he 
should  say,  "  I  am  a  believer  if  God  will."  * 

The  happy  one  sometimes  becomes  miserable  and  the  miser- 
able one  sometimes  becomes  happy,*  and  the  changing  is  in 
happiness  and  misery,  and  not  in  making  happy  and  making 
miserable  :  for  those  are  both  qualities  of  God  Most  High, 
and  there  is  no  changing  in  Him  nor  in  His  qualities. 

And  in  the  sending  of  Apostles  (rasuls)  is  an  advantage  and 
God  has  sent  Apostles  of  flesh  unto  flesh  with  good  tidings, 
warning  and  explaining  to  men  the  things  of  the  world  and  of 
faith,  of  which  they  have  need.  And  He  has  aided  them  with 
miracles  {mu^jizat)  which  break  the  order  of  nature.  The  first 
of  the  Prophets  (nabis)  was  Adam  and  the  last  is  Muhammad, 
Upon  both  of  them  be  Peace  !  A  statement  of  their  number 
has  been  Imnded  down  in  several  traditions,  but  the  more 
fitting  course  is  that  there  should  be  no  limiting  to  a  num- 
ber in  naming  them ;  God  Most  High  has  said,  "  Of  them  are 
those  concerning  whom  We  have  recited  to  thee,  and  of  them 
are  those  concerning  whom  We  have  not  recited  to  thee." 
And  there  is  no  security  in  a  statement  of  number  against 
there  being  entered  among  them  some  that  are  not  of  them, 
or  of  there  being  excluded  from  them  some  that  are  of  them. 
They  all  give  intelligence  concerning  God  Most  High,  are 
veracious  and  sincere,  and  the  most  excellent  of  the  Prophets 
is  Muhammad — Upon  him  be  Peace  ! 

The  Angels  are  servants  of  God  and  work  according  to  His 
commands.     They  are  not  described  as  masculine  or  feminine. 

And  God  has  books  which  He  has  revealed  to  His  Prophets, 
and  in  them  are  His  commands  and  His  promises. 


AN-NASAFI  313 

The  Night  Journey  [mi'raj)  of  the  Apostle  of  God — Upon 
whom  be  Blessing  and  Peace  !  while  awake,  in  the  body,  to 
Heaven,  then  to  what  place  God  Most  High  willed  of  the 
Exalted  Regions,  is  a  Verity. 

The  Wonders  (karamat)  of  the  Saints  [walis)  are  a  Verity.  And 
a  Wonder  on  the  part  of  a  Saint  apj)ears  by  way  of  a  contra- 
diction of  the  ordinary  course  of  nature,  such  as  passing  over 
a  great  distance  in  a  short  time,  and  the  appearing  of  meat  and 
drink  and  clothing  at  a  time  of  need,  and  walking  upon  the 
water  and  in  the  air,  and  the  speech  of  stones  and  of  beasts, 
and  the  warding  off  of  an  evil  that  is  approaching,  and  the 
guarding  of  him  who  is  anxious  from  enemies,  and  other 
things  of  the  same  kind.  And  such  a  thing  is  to  be  reckoned 
as  an  evidentiary  miracle  {mu\jiza)  on  behalf  of  the  Apostle 
followed  by  the  Saint  on  whose  part  the  wonder  appears.  For 
it  is  evident  by  it  that  he  is  a  Saint  and  he  could  never  be  a 
Saint  unless  he  were  right  in  his  religion  and  worship  and  in 
abiding  by  the  message  committed  to  his  Ai30stle. 

The  most  excellent  of  mankind  after  the  Prophets  are  Abu 
Bakr,  the  Very  Veracious  {as-Siddiq),  then  Umar,  the  Divider 
{al-Faruq),  then  Uthman,  he  of  the  Two  Lights  [Dhu-n-Nur- 
ayn) ,  then  Ali — The  good- will  of  God  be  upon  them !  Their 
Khalifates  were  in  this  order,  and  the  Khalifate  extended  to 
thirty  years  ;  then,  thereafter,  came  kings  and  princes. 

The  Muslims  cannot  do  without  a  leader  [Imam)  who  shall 
occupy  himself  with  the  enforcing  of  their  decisions,  and  in 
maintaining  their  boundaries  and  guarding  their  frontiers, 
and  equipping  their  armies,  and  receiving  their  alms,  and 
putting  down  robberies  and  thieving  and  highwaymen,  and 
maintaining  the  Friday  services  and  the  Festivals,  and  remov- 
ing quarrels  that  fall  between  creatures,  and  receiving  evi- 
dence bearing  on  legal  claims,  and  marrying  minors,  male  and 
female,  and  those  who  have  no  guardians,  and  dividing  booty. 
And  it  is  necessary  that  the  leader  should  be  visible,  not  hid- 
den and  expected  to  appear  (mimtazar),  and  that  he  should  be 
of  the  tribe  of  Quraysh  and  not  of  any  other.  And  he  is  not 
assigned  exclusively  to  the  sons  of  Hashim  nor  to  the  children 


314  APPENDIX   I 

of  Ali,  And  it  is  not  a  condition  that  he  should  be  protected 
bj  God  from  sin  {isma),  nor  that  he  should  be  the  most  ex- 
cellent of  the  people  of  his  time,  but  it  is  a  condition  that  he 
should  have  administrative  ability,  should  be  a  good  governor 
and  be  able  to  carry  out  decrees  and  to  guard  the  restric- 
tive ordinances  (Jiadds)  of  Islam  and  to  protect  the  wronged 
against  him  who  wrongs  him.  And  he  is  not  to  be  deposed 
from  the  leadership  on  account  of  immorality  or  tyranny. 

Prayer  is  allowable  behind  anyone  whether  pure  or  a  sin- 
ner. And  we  give  the  salutation  of  Peace  to  the  pure  and  to 
the  sinner. 

And  we  abstain  from  the  mention  of  the  Companions  (sahibs) 
of  the  Prophet  except  with  good. 

And  we  bear  witness  that  Paradise  is  for  the  ten  to  whom 
the  Prophet— God  bless  him  and  give  him  Peace  ! — gave 
good  tidings  of  Paradise  [al-asharatu-l-muhashshara). 

And  we  approve  the  wiping  (mash)  of  the  inner-shoes  (khuffs) 
both  at  home  and  when  on  a  journey. 

And  we  do  not  regard  nahidh  as  forbidden. 

And  the  Saint  does  not  reach  the  level  of  the  Prophets. 
And  the  creature  does  not  come  to  a  point  where  commands 
and  prohibitions  and  the  details  of  the  statutes  in  their  out- 
ward sense  {zahir)  fall  away  from  him  ;  and  the  turning  aside 
from  these  to  the  views  which  the  People  of  the  Inner  Mean- 
ing [hatin)  assert  is  a  deviation  (ilhad)  through  unbelief. 

And  feeling  safe  from  God  is  unbelief.  And  despairing  of 
God  is  unbelief.  And  rejection  of  the  statutes  and  contempt 
for  the  law  is  unbelief.  And  believing  a  diviner  [kahin)  in 
what  he  tells  of  the  Unseen  {ghayb)  is  unbelief.  And  what 
does  not  exist  (ma'dum)  is  known  of  God  Most  High  just  as 
what  exists  [mawjud)  is  known  of  Him  and  it  {i.e. ,  what  does 
not  exist]  is  neither  a  thing  [shay)  nor  an  object  of  vision 
{mar'' an). 

And  in  prayer  of  the  living  for  the  dead,  and  in  alms  of- 
fered for  them  there  is  an  advantage  to  them.  And  God  Most 
High  answers  prayers  and  supx^lies  needs. 

And  what  the  Prophet  has  rei^orted  of  the  conditions  of  the 


AN-NASAFI  ;   AL-FUDALI  315 

last  day  (as-sa'a),  of  the  appearance  of  ad-Dajjal  and  of  the 
beast  of  the  earth  [cf.  Revelations  xiii,  11  flf.]  and  of  Yajuj  Q.ndi 
Majuj  and  the  descent  of  Isa  from  heaven  and  the  rising  of 
the  sun  in  the  west,  that  is  verity. 

And  the  Mujtahids  sometimes  err  and  sometimes  hit  the 
mark.  And  the  Apostles  of  mankind  are  more  excellent  than 
the  Apostles  of  the  angels  ;  and  the  Apostles  of  the  angels  are 
more  excellent  than  the  generality  of  mankind  ;  and  the  gen- 
erality of  mankind  of  the  true  believers  is  more  excellent  than 
the  generality  of  the  angels. 

VI 

THE  CREED  CALLED  THE  SUFFICIENCY  OF  THE  COSIMONALTT  IN  THE 
SCIENCE  OF  SCHOLASTIC  THEOLOGY,  BY  MUHAMMAD  AL-FUDALI 
[d.  FIRST  HALF  OF  THE  THIRTEENTH  CENTURY  OF  THE  HIJRa] 

[Translated  from  the  Arabic  text  of  Cairo,  a.h.  1315,  with  the 
commentary  of  al-Bayjuri.] 

In  the  name  of  God,  the  merciful  Compassionator.  Praise  belongeth 
unto  God  who  alone  bringeth  into  existence,  and  blessing  and  peace 
be  upon  our  Lord  Muhammad,  his  family  and  companions,  posses- 
sors of  beauty  and  guidance. 

To  proceed  :  The  creature  who  stands  in  need  of  the  mercy 
of  his  exalted  Lord,  Muhammad  ibn  ash-Shafi*i  al-Fudali 
says  ;  One  of  the  brethren  asked  me  that  I  should  compose  a 
tractate  on  the  divine  unity  {tawhid),  and  I  agreed  to  that, 
following  the  example  of  the  most  learned  Shaykh,  as-Sanusi, 
[d.  895,]  in  the  establishing  of  proofs,  except  that  I  adduced 
each  proof  [dnlil)  in  connection  with  the  doctrine  that  was  to  be 
proved,  and  added  to  it  an  exposition  on  account  of  my  knowl- 
edge of  the  limitations  of  that  student.  So,  in  the  ascription 
of  praise  to  God  Most  High,  it  became  a  tractate,  useful  and 
excellent  for  the  establishing  of  that  which  is  in  it.  And  I 
called  it,  the  sufficiency  of  the  people  in  that  which  is 

NECESSARY   TO   THEM   OF   THE   SCIENCE    OF    SCHOLASTIC    THEOLOGY 

(kalam).     And  I  pray  God  Most  High  that  He  will  make  it 


816  APPENDIX   I 

useful,  for  He  is  my  sufficiency,  and  excellent  is  the  Guar- 
dian. 

Know  that  it  is  incumbent  upon  every  Muslim  that  he 
should  know  fifty  articles  of  belief  [aqidas),  and  for  each 
article  that  he  should  know  a  proof,  general  (ijmali)  or  de- 
tailed [tafsili).  Some  say  that  it  is  required  that  he  should 
know  a  detailed  proof,  but  the  common  opinion  is  that  a  gen- 
eral proof  suffices  for  each  article  of  the  fifty.  An  example  of 
a  detailed  proof  is  when  someone  says,  '*  What  is  the  proof 
of  the  existence  (wujud)  of  God?"  that  the  answer  should  be, 
"These  created  things,"  That  the  asker  should  then  say, 
"Do  the  created  things  prove  the  existence  of  God  on  the 
side  of  their  possibility  or  on  the  side  of  their  existence  after 
non-existence  (adam)  ?  "  and  that  his  question  should  be  an- 
swered. And  if  the  further  question  is  not  answered,  but  the 
only  answer  is,  *'  These  created  things,"  and  the  answerer  does 
not  know  whether  it  is  on  the  side  of  their  possibility  or  of 
their  existence  after  non-existence,  then  the  proof  is  said  to 
be  general ;  but  it  is  sufficient  according  to  the  common  posi- 
tion. And  with  regard  to  taqlid  (blind  acceptance),  which  is 
that  fifty  articles  are  known  but  no  proof  of  them  is  known, 
either  general  or  detailed,  the  learned  difier.  Some  say  that  it 
does  not  suffice,  and  that  the  mukallad  (blind  accepter)  is  an  un- 
believer {kafir).  Ibn  al-Arabi  [d.  543]  held  this  and  as-Sanusi, 
and  the  latter  gave  in  his  commentary  on  his  kubra  a  lengthy 
refutation  of  those  who  hold  that  taqlid  is  sufficient.  Yet  there 
is  a  report  that  he  retired  from  this  position,  and  acknowl- 
edged the  sufficiency  of  taqlid ;  but  I  have  never  seen  in  his 
books  anything  but  the  opinion  that  it  does  not  suffice. 

INTEODUGTION 

Know  that  an  understanding  of  the  fifty  following  articles 
must  be  based  upon  three  things — the  necessary  (wajib),  the 
impossible  (mustahil),  and  the  possible  {jaHz).  The  necessary 
is  that  the  non-existence  of  which  cannot  be  apprehended  by 
the    intellect  {aql),  that  is,  the    intellect    cannot    affirm   its 


AL-FUDALI  317 

non-existence,  as  boundary  to  a  body  (jirm),  i.e.,  its  taking  up 
a  certain  measure  of  space  (faragh).  An  example  of  a  body 
is  a  tree  or  a  stone.  Then,  whenever  a  person  says  to  you, 
that  a  tree,  for  example,  does  not  take  up  room  {mahnll) 
in  the  earth,  your  intellect  cannot  affirm  that,  for  its  taking 
up  room  is  a  necessary  thing,  the  absence  of  which  your  intel- 
lect cannot  affirm.  The  impossible  is  that  the  existence  of 
which  cannot  be  apprehended  ;  that  is,  the  intellect  cannot 
affirm  its  existence.  Then,  whenever  anyone  says  that  such  a 
body  is  bare  of  motion  and  rest  at  the  same  time,  your  intel- 
lect cannot  affirm  that,  because  being  bare  of  motion  and  rest 
at  the  same  time  is  an  impossibility,  the  occurrence  and  ex- 
istence of  which  the  intellect  cannot  affirm,  and  whenever  it 
is  said  that  weakness  {ajz)  is  impossible  in  God,  the  meaning 
is  that  the  occurrence  or  existence  of  weakness  in  God  is  un- 
thinkable. So,  too,  with  the  other  impossibilities.  And  the 
possible  is  that  the  existence  of  which  at  one  time,  and  the 
non-existence  at  another,  the  intellect  can  affirm,  as  the  ex- 
istence of  a  child  of  Zayd's.  When,  then,  someone  says  that 
Zayd  has  a  child,  your  intellect  acknowledges  the  possibility  of 
the  truth  of  that ;  and  whenever  he  says  that  Zayd  has  no  child, 
your  intellect  acknowledges  the  possibility  of  the  truth  of  that. 
So  the  existence  and  the  non-existence  of  a  child  of  Zayd 
is  possible  ;  the  intellect  can  believe  in  its  existence  or  in  its 
non-existence.  And  whenever  it  is  said  that  God's  sustaining 
Zayd  with  a  dinar  is  a  possibility,  the  meaning  is  that  the  intel- 
lect assents  to  the  existence  of  that  sustaining  {rizq)  at  one 
time  and  to  its  non-existence  at  another. 

On  these  three  distinctions,  then,  is  based  the  science  of 
the  articles  of  belief ;  and  these  three  are  necessary  for  every 
mukallaf  [one  who  has  a  task  imposed  upon  him  ;  in  this  case 
of  religious  duty],  male  and  female,  for  that  upon  which  the 
necessary  is  based  is  necessary.  The  Imam  al-Haramayn  (d. 
478)  even  held  that  an  understanding  of  these  three  consti- 
tuted reason  itself  and  that  he  who  did  not  know  the  meaning 
of  necessary,  impossible  and  possible,  was  not  a  reasons  ig 
being.     So,  whenever  it  is  said  here  that  Power  is  necessary 


318  APPENDIX   I 

(wajib)  in  God,  the  meaning  is  tliat  the  intellect  cannot  affirm 
its  non-existence,  because  the  necessary  is  that  the  non-exist- 
ence of  which  the  intellect  cannot  affirm,  as  has  preceded. 
But  necessary  {wajib,  incumbent)  in  the  sense  of  that  the  not 
doing  of  which  is  punished,  is  an  idea  which  does  not  enter 
into  the  science  of  the  divine  Unity.  So,  do  not  let  the  mat- 
ter be  confused  for  you.  It  is  true  that  if  one  says  that  belief 
in  the  Power  of  God  is  incumbent  (wajib)  on  the  mukallafy 
the  meaning  is  that  he  is  rewarded  for  that  and  punished  tor 
omitting  that.  Thus  there  is  a  distinction  between  saying 
that  belief  in  such  and  such  is  incumbent  and  that  the  knowl- 
edge, for  example,  is  necessary.  For  when  it  is  said  that 
knowledge  is  necessary  in  God,  the  meaning  is  that  the  intel- 
lect cannot  affirm  the  non-existence  of  knowledge  in  God. 
But  when  it  is  said  that  belief  in  that  knowledge  is  incum- 
bent, the  meaning  is  that  belief  in  it  is  rewarded  and  lack  of 
belief  punished.  So,  apply  thyself  to  the  distinction  between 
the  two  and  be  not  of  those  who  regard  taqlid  in  the  articles 
of  Religion  as  right,  that  so  your  faith  [imau]  should  differ 
from  the  truth  and  you  should  abide  in  the  Fire,  according 
to  those  who  hold  that  iaqlid  does  not  suffice.  As-Sanusi 
said,  "A  person  is  not  a  Believer  when  he  says,  *  I  hold  by 
the  Articles  and  will  not  abandon  them  though  I  be  cut  in 
pieces  ; '  nay,  he  is  not  a  Believer  until  he  knows  each  Article 
of  the  fifty,  along  with  its  proof."  And  this  science  of  theol- 
ogy must  be  studied  first  of  all  sciences,  as  may  be  gathered 
from  the  commentary  [by  at-Taftazani,  d.  791]  on  as-Sanusi's 
Articles;  for  he  made  this  science  a  foundation  on  which 
other  things  are  built.  So  a  judgment  as  to  anyone's  cere- 
monial ablution  (tviidu)  or  prayer  is  not  valid  unless  the  per- 
son in  question  knows  these  articles  or,  on  the  other  hand, 
holds  them  without  i3roof. 

Now,  let  us  state  to  you  the  fifty  articles  shortly,  before 
stating  them  in  detail.  Know,  then,  that  twenty  qualities 
are  necessary  in  God  Most  High,  that  twenty  are  impossible 
in  Him  and  that  one  is  possible.     This  makes  up  forty-one. 


AL-FUDALI  319 

And  in  the  case  of  the  Apostles,  four  qualities  are  necessary, 
four  imi^ossible  and  one  iDossible.  This  makes  up  the  fifty. 
And  there  shall  come  an  accurate  account  of  doctrines  along 
with  the  statement  of  them,  if  it  be  the  will  of  God  Most 
High. 

The  first  of  the  qualities  necessary  in  God  is  existence  {wzi- 
jud) ;  and  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion  as  to  its  meaning. 
All  except  the  Imam  al-Ash'ari  and  his  followers  hold  that 
existence  is  the  state  [hal)  necessary  to  the  essence  so  long  as 
the  essence  abi/les ;  and  this  state  has  no  cause  {ilia).  And 
the  meaning  of  it  being  a  state  is  that  it  does  not  attain  to 
the  degree  of  an  entity  (mawjud)  and  does  not  fall  to  the 
degree  of  a  non-entity  {ma^dum},  so  that  it  should  be  non- 
existence pure,  but  is  half  way  between  an  entity  and  a  non- 
entity. So  the  existence  of  Zayd,  for  example,  is  a  state 
necessary  to  his  essence ;  that  is,  it  cannot  be  separated  from 
his  essence.  And  when  it  is  said  that  it  has  no  cause,  the 
meaning  is  that  it  does  not  originate  in  anything,  as  opposed 
to  Zayd's  potentiality  {qadir,  powerful),  for  example,  which 
originates  in  his  power  {qudra).  So  Zayd's  potentiality  and 
his  existence  are  two  states  which  subsist  in  his  essence,  un- 
perceived  by  any  of  the  five  senses  ;  only,  the  first  has  a  cause 
in  which  it  originates,  and  it  is  power,  and  the  second  has  no 
cause.  This  is  the  description  of  a  personal  state  {hal  nafsi) 
and  every  state  subsisting  in  an  essence,  without  a  cause,  is  a 
personal  quality  {sifa  nafsiya).  It  is  that  without  which  the 
essence  is  unthinkable ;  that  is,  the  essence  cannot  be  appre- 
hended by  the  intellect  and  comprehended  except  through  its 
personal  quality,  like  limitation  for  a  body.  For,  if  you  ap- 
prehend and  comprehend  a  body,  you  have  comprehended 
that  it  is  limited.  So,  according  to  this  doctrine — that  exist- 
ence is  a  state — the  essence  of  God  is  not  His  existence  and 
the  essences  of  the  created  things  are  not  their  existences. 
But  al-Ash'ari  and  his  followers  hold  that  existence  is  the 
self  {ayn)  of  an  entity,  and  according  to  their  view  the  exist- 
tence  of  God  is  the  self  of  His  essence  and  not  an  addition  to 
it  externally,  and  the  existence  of  a  created  thing  is  the  self 


320  APPENDIX   I 

of  its  essence.  And,  on  this  view,  it  is  not  clear  liow  exist- 
ence can  be  reckoned  as  a  quality,  because  existence  is  the 
self  of  the  essence,  and  a  quality,  on  the  other  hand,  as  we 
have  seen  already,  is  something  else  than  the  essence.  But  if 
he  makes  existence  a  quality,  then  the  thing  is  j^lain  and  the 
meaning  that  existence  is  necessary  in  God,  according  to  the 
first  view,  is  that  the  personal  quality  is  a  state  established 
in  God;  and  its  meaning,  on  the  second  view,  is  that  the 
essence  of  God  is  an  entity  with  external  reality,  so  that  if  the 
veil  were  removed  from  us  we  would  see  it.  The  essence  of 
God,  then,  is  a  reality ;  only,  its  existence  is  something  else 
than  it,  on  the  one  view,  and  is  it,  on  the  other. 

And  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  is  the  origin  {huduth) 
of  the  world  ;  that  is,  its  existence  after  non-existence.  The 
world  consists  of  bodies  (jirms)  like  essences  ;  and  accidents 
{arads)  like  motion,  and  rest  and  colors.  And  the  origin  of 
the  world  is  a  proof  of  the  existence  of  God  only  because  it  is 
not  sound  reasoning  that  it  should  originate  through  itself 
without  someone  bringing  it  into  existence.  Before  it  ex- 
isted, its  existence  equalled  its  non-existence  ;  then,  when  it 
entered  existence  and  its  non-existence  ceased,  we  know  that 
its  existence  overbalanced  its  non-existence.  But  this  exist- 
ence had  previously  equalled  the  non-existence  ;  and  it  is  not 
sound  reasoning  that  it  could  overbalance  the  non-existence 
through  itself;  so  that  it  is  clear  that  there  must  have  been 
one  who  caused  the  overbalancing,  other  than  itself,  and  it 
is  He  that  brought  it  into  existence  ;  for  it  is  impossible  that 
one  of  two  equal  things  could  overbalance  the  other  without 
an  overbalancer.  For  example,  before  Zayd  exists  it  is  pos- 
sible that  he  may  come  into  existence  in  such  and  such  a 
year  and  also  that  he  may  remain  in  non-existence.  So,  his 
existence  is  equal  to  his  non-existence.  So,  then,  when  he  exists 
and  his  non-existence  ceases,  in  the  time  in  which  he  exists, 
we  know  that  his  existence  is  by  a  bringer-into-existence  and 
not  through  himself.  The  proof,  in  short,  is  that  you  say  : — 
The  world,  consisting  of  bodies  and  accidents,  is  a  thing 
originated  [hadith),  i.e.,  an  entity  after  non-existence.     And 


AL-FUDALI  321 

every   originated  thing  cannot  help  but  have  an   originator 
{muhdith).    Therefore,  the  world  must  have  had  an  originator. 

This  is  what  can  be  gained  by  an  intellectual  proof.  But 
as  for  the  Originator  being  named  by  the  Glorious  and  Lofty 
Expression  [i.e.,  Allah,  God]  or  the  other  Names  (asnia), 
knowledge  of  that  is  to  be  gained  from  the  Prophets  only. 
So  note  this  point  carefully  and  also  the  proof  which  has  pre- 
ceded, that  the  originating  of  the  world  is  a  proof  of  the  ex- 
istence of  Him  Most  High. 

But  as  for  the  proof  that  the  world  has  had  an  origin,  know 
that  the  world  consists  of  bodies  and  accidents  only,  as  has 
preceded.  And  the  accidents,  like  motion  and  rest,  are  orig- 
inated, because  you  observe  their  changing  from  existence  to 
non-existence  and  from  non-existence  to  existence.  You  see 
it  is  so  in  the  motion  of  Zayd.  His  motion  is  lacking  if  he  is 
at  rest ;  and  his  rest  is  lacking  if  he  is  in  motion.  Then  his 
rest,  which  comes  after  his  motion,  exists  after  that  it  has 
been  lacking  through  motion ;  and  his  motion,  which  comes 
after  his  rest,  exists  after  that  it  has  been  lacking  through  his 
rest.  And  existence  after  non-existence  means  having  an 
origin.  And  bodies  are  inseparable  from  attributes,  because 
they  are  never  free  from  either  motion  or  rest.  And  whatever 
is  inseparable  from  a  thing  having  origin  must  have  origin  ; 
i.e.,  must  be  an  entity  after  non-existence.  So,  the  bodies  are 
originated  also,  like  the  attributes.  The  proof,  in  short,  is 
that  you  say  :  Bodies  are  inseparable  from  attributes  and  these 
have  an  origin  ;  everything  that  is  inseparable  from  that  which 
has  an  origin,  itself  has  an  origin  ;  therefore,  bodies  have  an 
origin.  And  the  origin  of  the  two  things — bodies  and  attri- 
butes— that  is  their  existence  after  non-existence,  is  a  proof  of 
the  existence  of  Him  Most  High,  because  everything  having 
an  origin  must  have  an  originator,  and  there  is  no  originator 
of  the  world  save  God  Most  High  alone,  who  has  no  partner 
{sharik)  as  shall  be  shown  in  the  proof  of  His  Unity.  This, 
then,  is  the  general  proof,  a  knowledge  of  which  is  incumbent 
upon  every  mukallqf,  male  and  female,  according  to  the  opinion 
of  Ibn  al-Arabi   and  as-Sanusi,  who  hold  those  who  do   not 


322  APPENDIX   I 

know  it  to  be  unbelievers.  So,  beware  lest  there  be  a  con- 
tradiction in  your  faith. 

The  second  Quality  necessary  in  God  is  Priority  {qidam) ; 
its  meaning  is  lack  of  beginning.  And  the  meaning  of  God's 
being  Prior  [qadim)  is  that  there  was  no  beginning  to  His  ex- 
istence, as  opposed  to  Zayd,  for  example.  Zayd's  existence 
had  a  beginning  and  it  was  the  creation  from  the  drop  from 
which  he  was  created.  And  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion 
whether  Prior  and  Azali  (eternal  with  respect  to  past  time) 
mean  the  same  or  not.  Those  who  hold  that  they  mean  the 
same,  define  them  as  that  which  has  no  beginning,  and  ex- 
plain "that  which"  by  thing  {sJiay).  That  is,  prior  and 
azali  are  the  thing  which  has  no  beginning  ;  so  the  essence  of 
God  and  His  qualities  are  included.  And  those  who  hold 
that  their  meaning  is  different  define  prior  as  the  entity  which 
had  no  beginning  and  azali  as  that  which  had  no  beginning, 
covering  thus  both  entity  and  nonentity.  So  azali  is  broader 
than  prior,  but  they  both  come  together  in  the  essence  of  God 
and  His  existential  qualities.  The  essence  of  God  is  azali 
and  His  Power  [qudra)  is  azali.  But  only  azali  is  said  of  the 
states  [hals)  like  God's  being  powerful,  in  accordance  with  the 
doctrine  of  the  states.  For  God's  being  powerful  is  called 
azali,  in  accordance  with  that  doctrine,  and  is  not  called  prior, 
because  in  prior  there  must  be  existence,  and  "  being  power- 
ful "  does  not  rise  to  the  level  of  existence  [to  being  an  entity], 
but  is  only  a  state  [hal). 

And  the  proof  of  God's  Priority  is  that  if  He  were  not  Prior 
He  would  be  a  thing  originated  {hadith),  because  there  is  no 
medium  between  the  prior  and  the  thing  originated  ;  to  every- 
thing of  which  priority  is  denied,  origin  belongs.  But  if  God 
were  a  thing  originated,  He  would  need  an  originator,  and  His 
originator  would  need  an  originator,  and  so  on.  Then,  if  the 
originators  did  not  coincide,  there  would  be  the  Endless 
Chain  (tasalsul),  that  is  a  sequence  of  things,  one  after  another 
to  infinity  ;  and  the  Endless  Chain  is  impossible.  And  if  the 
series  of  originators  comes  to  an  end  by  it  being  said  that  the 
originator  of  God  was  originated  by  Him,  then  we  have  the 


AL-FUDALI  323 

Circle  (dawr)  and  it  is  that  one  thing  depends  on  another  thing 
which  again  dejjends  on  the  first.  For  if  God  had  an  orig- 
inator, He  would  depend  on  this  originator  ;  but  the  hypoth- 
esis is  that  God  originated  this  originator  and  so  the  orig- 
inator depends  on  Him.  But  the  Circle  is  impossible ;  that 
is,  its  existence  is  unthinkable.  And  that  which  leads  to  the 
Circle  and  to  the  Chain,  both  being  impossible,  involves  the 
originating  of  God.  So,  the  originating  of  God  is  impossible  ; 
for  what  involves  an  impossibility  is  impossible.  The  proof, 
in  short,  is  that  you  say,  "If  God  were  other  than  Prior, 
through  being  a  thing  originated,  He  would  have  need  of  an 
originator.  Then  the  Circle  or  the  Chain  would  be  unavoid- 
able ;  but  they  are  both  impossible.  So,  the  originating  of 
God  is  impossible  and  His  Priority  is  established  ;  and  that  is 
what  has  been  sought."  This  is  the  general  proof  of  the 
Priority  of  God,  and  by  it  the  77iukallaf  escsi^es  from  the  noose 
of  taqlid,  the  remainer  in  which  will  abide  eternally  in  the 
Fire,  according  to  the  opinion  of  Ibn  al-Arabi  and  as-Sanusi, 
as  has  preceded. 

The  third  Quality  necessary  in  God  is  Continuance  (baqa). 
The  meaning  of  it  is  lack  of  termination  of  the  existence  ;  and 
the  meaning  of  God's  being  continuing  is  that  there  is  no  end 
to  His  existence.  And  the  proof  of  God's  continuance  is  that 
if  it  were  possible  that  any  lack  could  be  joined  to  Him,  then 
He  would  be  a  thing  originated  and  would  need  an  originator 
and  then  the  Circle  or  the  Chain  would  necessarily  follow.  A 
definition  of  each  one  of  these  two  has  preceded  in  the  proof 
of  Priority  and  in  the  explanation  that  to  a  thing  with  which 
non-existence  is  possible,  priority  must  be  denied.  For  the 
existence  of  everyone  to  whom  non-existence  is  joined  is  pos- 
sible, and  everything  whose  existence  is  possible  is  a  thing 
originated,  and  everything  originated  requires  an  originator. 
But  Priority  has  been  established  for  God  by  the  preced- 
ing proof,  and  non-existence  is  impossible  for  everything  for 
which  Priority  has  been  established.  So  the  proof  of  Con- 
tinuance in  God  is  the  same  as  the  proof  of  Priority.  That 
proof,  in  short,  is  that  you  say,  "  If  Continuance  is  not  neces- 


324  APPENDIX   I 

sary  in  Him,  then  Priority  must  be  negated  of  Him.  But 
Priority  cannot  be  negated  on  account  of  the  preceding  proof." 
This  is  the  general  proof  of  Continuance,  a  knowledge  of 
which  is  incumbent  on  every  individual.  And  similarly  a 
knowledge  of  every  article  is  necessary  and  of  its  general 
proof.  Then,  if  some  of  the  articles  are  known  with  their 
proofs,  and  the  rest  are  not  known  with  their  proofs,  that  is 
not  sufficient  according  to  the  opinion  of  those  who  do  not 
regard  taqlid  as  sufficient. 

The  fourth  Quality  necessary  in  God  is  difference  {mu- 
khalafa)  from  originated  things.  That  is,  from  created  things 
{makJiluqat) ,  for  God  is  different  from  every  created  thing, 
men,  Jinn,  angels  and  the  rest ;  and  it  is  not  good  that  He 
should  be  described  with  the  descriptions  which  apply  to  cre- 
ated things,  as  walking,  sitting,  having  members  of  the  body, 
for  He  is  far  removed  [munazzah)  from  members  of  the  body,  as 
mouth,  eye,  ear  and  the  like.  Then,  from  everything  that  is 
in  your  mind  of  length  and  breadth  and  shortness  and  fat- 
ness, God  is  different ;  He  has  removed  Himself  far  from  all 
descriptions  which  apply  to  the  creation.  And  the  proof  of 
the  necessity  of  this  difference  in  God  is  that  if  any  originated 
thing  resembled  Him,  that  is,  if  it  were  laid  down  that  God 
could  be  described  with  any  of  the  things  with  which  an 
originated  thing  is  described,  then  He  would  be  an  originated 
thing.  And  if  God  were  an  originated  thing,  then  He  would 
need  an  originator,  and  His  originator,  another  originator, 
and  so  we  would  come  necessarily  to  the  circle  or  the  chain, 
and  both  of  these  are  impossible.  This  proof,  in  short,  is 
that  you  say,  *'  If  God  resembles  a  created  thing  in  anything, 
He  is  an  originated  thing,  because  what  is  possible  in  one  of 
two  things  resembling  each  other,  is  possible  in  the  other. 
But  that  God  should  be  originated  is  impossible,  for  priority 
is  necessary  in  Him.  And  when  being  originated  is  denied 
in  Him,  His  difference  from  created  things  stands  fast  and 
there  is  absolutely  no  resemblance  between  Him  and  the 
originated  things.  This  is  the  general  proof,  the  knowledge 
of  which  is  necessary,  as  has  preceded. 


AL-FUDALI  325 

The  fifth  Quality  necessary  in  God  is  self-snbsistence  {qiyam 
hin-nafs).  That  is  in  the  essence ;  and  its  meaning  is  that 
there  is  independence  of  a  locus  {mahall,  subject)  and  a  speci- 
fier [mukhassis) .  The  locus  is  the  essence  and  the  specifier  is 
thebringer-into-existence  (mujid)  ;  then  the  meaning  of  God's 
subsisting  in  Himself  is  that  He  is  independent  of  an  essence 
in  which  He  may  subsist,  or  of  a  bringer-into-existence ;  for 
He  is  the  bringer-into-existence  of  all  things.  The  proof  that 
He  subsists  in  Himself  is  that  you  say,  "  If  God  had  need  of  a 
locus,  that  is  an  essence,  in  which  He  might  subsist,  as  white- 
ness has  need  of  an  essence  in  which  it  may  subsist.  He  would 
be  a  quality,  as  whiteness,  for  example,  is  a  quality.  But  it 
it  is  not  sound  to  say  of  Him  that  He  is  a  quality,  for  He  is 
described  by  qualities,  and  a  quality  is  not  described  by  qual- 
ities, so  He  is  not  a  quality.  And  if  He  had  need  of  a  bringer- 
into-existence.  He  would  be  an  originated  thing,  and  His 
originator  would  be  an  originated  thing  also,  and  the  Circle 
or  the  Chain  would  necessarily  follow.  Then  it  stands  fast 
that  He  is  the  absolutely  independent,  that  is.  He  is  inde- 
pendent of  everything.  But  the  created  thing  that  is  inde- 
pendent is  independent  in  a  limited  sense  only ;  that  is,  of  one 
thing  in  place  of  another.     And  may  God  rule  thy  guidance. 

The  sixth  Quality  in  God  is  Unity  {wihdaniya).  It  is  unity  in 
essence  and  qualities  and  acts  in  the  sense  of  absence  of  mul- 
tiplicity. And  the  meaning  of  God's  being  one  in  His  es- 
sence is  that  His  essence  is  not  compounded  of  parts,  and  this 
compounding  is  called  internal  quantity  {kamm  muttasil). 
And  in  the  sense  that  there  is  not  in  existence  or  in  possibil- 
ity an  essence  which  resembles  the  essence  of  God,  this  im- 
possibility of  resemblance  is  called  external  quantity  [kamm 
munfasil).  The  unity,  then,  in  the  essence  denies  both  quan- 
tities, external  and  internal.  And  the  meaning  of  God's  One- 
ness in  qualities  is  that  He  has  not  two  qualities  agreeing  in 
name  and  meaning,  like  two  Powers,  or  two  Knowledges  or 
two  Wills — for  He  has  only  one  Power  and  one  Will  and  one 
Knowledge,  in  opposition  to  Abu  Sahl,  who  held  that  He  had 
knowledges  to  the  number  of  the  things  known.     And  this,  I 


326  APPENDIX  I 

mean  multiplicity  in  qualities,  is  called  internal  quantity  in 
qualities.  Or  the  sense  is,  that  no  one  has  a  quality  resembling 
a  quality  of  God.  And  this,  I  mean  anyone  possessing  a  qual- 
ity, etc.,  is  called  external  quantity  in  qualities.  Oneness, 
then,  in  qualities,  negates  quantity  in  them,  internal  and  ex- 
ternal. And  the  meaning  of  God's  Oneness  in  acts  is  that  no 
created  thing  possesses  an  act,  for  God  is  the  creator  of  the 
acts  of  created  things,  prophets,  angels  and  the  rest.  And  as 
for  what  happens  when  an  individual  dies  or  falls  into  pain 
on  opposing  himself  to  a  saint  (loali),  that  is  by  the  creation  of 
God,  who  creates  it  when  the  saint  is  angry  with  the  man  who 
opposes  him.  Do  not  then  explain  Oneness  in  acts  by  saying 
that  no  other  than  God  has  an  act  like  God's  act,  for  that  in- 
volves that  some  other  than  God  has  an  act,  but  that  it  is  not 
like  the  act  of  God.  That  is  false.  God  it  is  who  is  the  cre- 
ator of  all  acts.  What  comes  from  you  by  way  of  movement 
of  the  hand,  when  you  strike  Zayd,  for  example,  is  by  the 
creation  of  God.  He  has  said  (Qur.  37,  99),  **God  created 
you,  and  what  do  ye  do  ?  "  And  another  than  God  being 
possessor  of  an  act  is  called  external  quantity  in  acts. 

So  the  unity  necessary  in  God  denies  the  five  impossible 
quantities.  Internal  quantity  in  the  essence  makes  the  essence 
a  compound  of  parts ;  external  quantity  means  that  there  is 
an  essence  which  resembles  it.  Internal  quantity  in  the  qual- 
ities is  that  God  has  two  Powers,  for  example ;  external 
quantity  in  them  means  that  someone  else  has  a  quality  which 
resembles  one  of  His  qualities.  External  quantity  in  acts 
means  that  some  other  than  God  possesses  an  act.  These  five 
quantities  deny  the  unity  necessary  in  God.  The  meaning  of 
quantity  is  number  (adad). 

The  i^roof  that  Unity  is  necessary  in  God  is  the  existence  of 
the  world.  If  God  had  a  partner  (sharik)  in  divinity  (iduhiya)^ 
the  case  could  not  be  in  doubt.  Either  they  would  agree  on 
the  existence  of  the  world,  in  that  one  of  them  would  say, 
•*  I  will  cause  the  world  to  exist,"  and  the  other  would  say,  "I 
will  cause  it  to  exist  along  with  thee,  that  we  may  help  one 
another  in  it."     Or  they  would  disagree,  and  one  of  them 


AL-FUDALI  327 

would  say,  "  I  will  cause  the  world  to  exist  by  my  power," 
and  the  other,  * '  I  will  that  the  existence  be  lacking."     Then, 
if  they  agreed  upon  the  existence  of  the  world  in  that  both  of 
them  together  caused  it  to  exist,  and  it  existed  through  their 
action,  that  would  necessarily  involve  the  coincidence  of  two 
impressors  upon  one  impression,  which  is  impossible.     And 
if  they  disagreed,  it  is  plain  that  the  will  of  one  either  would 
be  carried  out  or  it  would  not  be  carried  out.     If  the  will  of 
one,  rather  than  the  other,  is  carried  out,  then  the  other 
whose  will  is  not  carried  out  must  be  weaker.     But  our  hy- 
pothesis was  that  he  was  equal  in  divinity  to  the  one  whose 
will  was  carried  out.     So  whenever  weakness  is  established 
in  the  case  of  the  one,  it  is  established  in  the  case  of  the 
other,  for  he  is  like  the  other.     And  if  the  wills  of  both  are 
not  carried  out,  they  are  both  weak.     And  upon  every  alterna- 
tive, that  they  agree  or  differ,  the  existence  of  a  single  thing 
of  the  world  is  impossible  ;  because  if  they  agree  on  its  ex- 
istence, there  necessarily  follows  the  coincidence  of  two  im- 
pressors upon  one  impression  if  their  will  is  carried  out,  and 
that  is  impossible.     So  the  carrying  out  of  their  will  is  not 
affected,  and  it  is  not  possible  that  a  single  thing  of  the  world 
should  come  into  existence  then.     And  if  they  disagree  and 
the  will  of  one  of  them  is  carried  out,  the  other  is  weak.    But 
he  is  his  like.     So  it  is  not  possible  that  there  should  come 
into  existence  a  single  thing  of  this  world,  for  he  is  weak. 
So  the  God  is  not  except  one.     And  if  they  differ  and  their 
will  is  not  carried  out,  they  are  weak  and  not  able  to  cause  the 
existence  of  a  thing  of  the  world.     But  the  world  exists,  by 
common  witness  (mushahada).     So  it  stands  fast  that  the  God 
is  one  ;    and  that  was  what  was  sought.      So  the  existence  of 
the  world  is  proof  of  the  Unity  of  God  and  that  He  has  no 
partner  in  any  act,  and  no  second  cause  in  an  action.     He  is 
the  independent  [al-Ghani),  the  absolutely  independent. 

And  from  this  proof  it  may  be  known  that  there  is  no  im- 
pression, by  fire  or  a  knife  or  eating,  ujDon  anything,  consist- 
ing of  burning  or  cutting  or  satiety,  but  God  makes  the  being 
burnt  in  a  thing  which  fire  touches,  when  it  touches  it,  and 


328  APPENDIX   I 

being  cut  in  a  thing  with  which  a  knife  is  brought  into  con- 
tact, when  it  is  brought  into  contact  with  it,  and  satiety  at 
eating  and  satisfaction  at  drinking.  And  he  who  holds  that 
fire  burns  by  its  nature  (tab),  and  water  satisfies  by  its  nat- 
ure, and  so  on,  is  an  unbeliever  (kafir)  by  agreement  {ijma). 
And  he  who  holds  that  it  burns  by  a  power  (quwa)  created  in 
it  by  God,  is  ignorant  and  corrupt,  because  he  knows  not  the 
true  nature  [haqiqa)  of  Unity. 

This  is  the  general  proof  a  knowledge  of  which  is  incum- 
bent upon  every  individual,  male  and  female  :  and  he  who 
knows  it  not  is  an  unbeliever,  according  to  as-Sanusi  and  al- 
Arabi.     And  may  God  rule  thy  guidance. 

And  Priority  and  Continuance  and  Difference  from  originated 
things  and  Self-Subsistence  and  Unity  are  negative  qualities 
{si/at  salahiyd),  that  is,  their  meaning  is  negation  and  exclu- 
sion, for  each  of  them  excludes  from  God  what  does  not  be- 
seem Him. 

The  seventh  Quality  necessary  in  God  is  Power  {qiidra).  It 
is  a  quality  which  makes  an  impression  on  a  thing  that  is  ca- 
pable of  existence  or  non-existence.  So  it  comes  into  connec- 
tion (ta'aUaqa)  with  a  non-entity  and  makes  it  an  entity,  as  it 
came  into  connection  with  you  before  you  existed.  And  it 
comes  into  connection  with  an  entity  and  reduces  it  to  a  non- 
entity, as  it  comes  into  contact  with  a  body  which  God  desires 
should  become  a  non-entity,  that  is,  a  not-thing  (la  shay). 
This  connection  is  called  accomplished  (tanjizi)  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  actual  (hil-fi'l),  and  this  accomplished  connec- 
tion is  a  thing  that  takes  place  (hadiih).  But  this  quality  has 
also  an  eternal,  potential  connection  (saluhi  qadim),  and  it  is 
its  potentiality  from  eternity  of  bringing  into  existence.  It  is 
potential  in  eternity  to  make  Zayd  tall  or  short  or  broad,  or 
give  him  knowledge  ;  but  its  accomplished  connection  is  con- 
ditioned by  the  state  in  which  Zayd  is.  So  it  has  two  connec- 
tions ;  one  eternal,  potential,  which  has  been  described,  and 
one  accomplished,  happening.  The  last  is  its  connection  with 
a  non-entity,  when  it  makes  it  an  entity  ;  and  with  an  entity, 
when  it  makes  it  a  non-entity .   And  this,  I  mean  its  connection 


AL-FUDALI  329 

with  an  entity  or  a  non-entity,  is  a  real  [haqiqi)  connection. 
But  it  has  also  a  figurative  {majazi)  connection.  That  is,  its 
connection  with  an  entity  after  it  has  become  so  and  before  it 
has  become  a  non-entity,  as  it  is  connected  with  us  after  we 
have  come  to  exist  and  before  we  have  ceased  to  exist.  It  is 
called  the  connection  of  grasping  [ta'alluqu-l-qahdati)  in  the 
sense  that  the  entity  is  in  the  grasp  [qabda)  of  the  Power  of 
God.  If  God  will,  He  makes  it  remain  an  entity  ;  and  if  He 
will.  He  reduces  it  to  non-entity.  And  its  connection  with 
the  non-entity  before  that  God  wills  its  existence  is  like  its 
connection  with  Zayd  at  the  time  of  the  Flood  [tufan),  for  ex- 
ample ;  it  also  is  a  connection  of  grasping  in  the  sense  that 
the  non -entity  is  in  the  grasp  of  the  Power  of  God.  If  God 
wills.  He  makes  it  remain  in  non-existence,  and  if  He  wills, 
He  brings  it  out  into  existence.  And  similar  is  its  connection 
with  us  after  our  death  and  before  the  resurrection  (ba'th). 
It,  too,  is  called  a  connection  of  grasping  in  the  sense  of  what 
has  preceded.  So  the  quality  of  Power  has  seven  connec- 
tions :  (1)  eternal,  (2)  connection  of  grasping  (that  is,  its  con- 
nection with  us  before  God  wills  our  existence),  (3)  actual  con- 
nection (that  is,  God's    bringing  the   thing  into   existence), 

(4)  connection  of  grasping  (that  is,  connection  with  a  thing 
after  existence  and  before   God  has  willed  non-existence), 

(5)  actual  connection  (that  is,  God's  making  a  thing  a  non-en- 
tity), (6)  connection  of  grasping  after  non-existence  and  before 
the  resurrection,  (7)  actual  connection  (that  is,  God's  making 
us  exist  on  the  day  of  resurrection). 

But  the  real  connections  of  these  are  two  ;  God's  bringing 
into  existence  and  bringing  into  non-existence.  This  is  a 
detailed  statement ;  and  a  general  statement  would  be  that 
God's  Power  has  two  connections— as  is  commonly  accepted 
—a  potential  and  an  accomplished ;  but  the  accomplished  is 
limited  to  actual  bringing  into  existence  and  non-existence. 
And  the  connection  of  grasping  is  not  to  be  described  as 
accomplished,  nor  as  eternal.  And  what  has  preceded  about 
this  quality  connecting  with  existence  and  non-existence  is 
the  opinion  of  the  multitude  on  the  subject.     But  some  hold 


330  APPENDIX   I 

that  it  does  not  connect  with  non-existence  ;  that  whenever 
God  desires  the  non-existence  of  an  individual,  He  takes  away 
from  him  the  aids  (imdadat)  which  are  the  cause  of  his  con- 
tinuance. 

The  eighth  Quality  necessary  in  God  is  Will  (irada).  It  is 
the  quality  which  specifies  the  possible  with  one  of  the  things 
possible  to  it.  For  example,  tallness  and  shortness  are  pos- 
sible to  Zayd ;  then  Will  specifies  him  with  one, — tallness, 
say.  Power  brings  tallness  out  of  non-existence  into  exist- 
ence. So  Will  specifies  and  Power  brings  out.  And  the 
possibilities  {mumkinat)  with  which  Power  and  Will  connect 
are  six  :  (1)  existence,  (2)  non-existence,  (3)  qualities,  like 
tallness  and  shortness,  (4)  times,  (5)  places,  (6)  directions. 

And  the  possibilities  are  called  "the  mutual  opposers " 
(mutaqabilat),  existence  opposes  non-existence  and  tallness 
opposes  shortness  and  direction  upward  opposes  direction 
downward,  and  one  place,  like  Egypt,  oj)poses  another  place, 
like  Syria.  And  this,  in  short,  means  that  it  is  possible  in 
the  case  of  Zayd,  for  example,  that  he  should  remain  in  non- 
existence and  also  that  ho  should  enter  existence  at  this  time. 
Then,  whenever  he  enters  existence.  Will  has  specified  exist- 
ence instead  of  non-existence,  and  Power  has  brought  out 
existence.  And  it  would  have  been  possible  that  he  might 
have  entered  existence  at  the  time  of  the  Flood  {tufan)  or  at 
some  other  time  ;  so  that  which  specifies  his  existence  at  this 
time  instead  of  any  other  is  Will.  And  it  is  possible  that  he 
should  be  tall  or  short ;  then  that  which  specifies  his  tallness 
instead  of  shortness  is  Will.  And  it  is  possible  that  he  should 
be  in  the  direction  upward,  then  that  which  specifies  him  in 
the  direction  downward  is  Will.  And  Power  and  Will  are 
two  qualities  subsisting  in  God's  essence — two  entities  ;  if  the 
veil  were  removed  from  us  we  could  see  them.  They  have 
connection  with  the  possible  only  ;  but  none  with  the  impos- 
sible, such  as  a  partner  for  God.  He  is  far  removed  from 
that!  Nor  with  the  necessary,  like  the  essence  of  God  and 
His  qualities.  Ignorance  is  the  saying  of  those  who  hold 
that  God  has  power  to  take  a  son  [walad)  ;  fo^:  Power  has  no 


AL-FUDALI  331 

connection  with  the  impossible  and  taking  a  son  is  impossible. 
But  it  should  not  be  said  that  because  He  has  no  power  to 
take  a  son,  He  is  therefore  weak.  "We  say  that  weakness 
would  follow  only  if  the  impossible  were  of  that  which  is 
allotted  to  Power.  But  Power  has  not  been  connected  with 
that,  seeing  that  nothing  is  allotted  to  it  except  the  possible. 
And  "Will  has  two  connections,  one  eternally  potential,  and  it 
is  its  potentiality  to  specify  from  all  eternity.  So,  in  the  case 
of  the  tall  or  the  short  Zayd,  it  is  possible  that  he  might  be 
otherwise  than  what  he  is,  so  far  as  relationship  to  the  poten- 
tiality of  "Will  is  concerned.  For  Will  is  potential  that  Zayd 
should  be  a  Sultan  or  a  scavenger,  so  far  as  the  potential 
connection  is  concerned.  And  "Will  has  also  an  eternal  ac- 
complished connection,  and  it  is  the  specifying  by  God  of  a 
thing  with  a  quality  which  it  possesses.  So  God  specified 
Zayd  from  all  eternity  by  His  "Will  with  the  knowledge  that 
he  possesses.  And  his  being  specified  with  knowledge,  for 
example,  is  eternal  and  is  called  an  eternal  accomplished  con- 
nection. And  the  potentiality  of  "Will  to  specify  him  with 
knowledge,  etc.,  in  relationship  to  the  essence  of  "Will,  cut- 
ting off  all  consideration  of  actual  specifying,  is  called  an 
eternal  potential  connection.  And  some  say  that  "Will  has  also 
a  temporal,  accomplished  connection.  It  is,  for  example,  the 
specifying  of  Zayd  with  tallness,  when  he  is  actually  brought 
into  existence.  According  to  this  view,  "Will  has  three  con- 
nections ;  but  the  truth  is  that  this  third  is  not  a  connection 
but  is  the  making  manifest  of  the  eternal,  accomplished  con- 
nection. 

And  the  connection  of  Power  and  "Will  is  common  to  every 
possible  thing  to  the  extent  that  the  affections  of  the  mind 
[khatarat)  which  arise  in  the  mind  of  an  individual  are  speci- 
fied by  the  "Will  of  God  and  created  by  His  Power  as  the 
Shaykh  al-Malawi  [Ahmad  al-Malawi,  d.  1181J  has  said  in 
some  of  his  books.  But  know  that  the  attributing  of  specify- 
ing to  "Will  and  of  bringing  out  into  existence  to  Power  is 
only  metaphorical ;  for  the  true  specifier  is  God  by  His  "Will 
and  the  true  producer  and  bringer-into-existence  is  God  by 


332  APPENDIX   I 

His  Power.  Then,  in  the  case  of  the  saying  of  the  common 
people  that  Power  does  such  and  such  to  so  and  so,  if  it  is 
meant  that  the  doing  belongs  to  Power  actually,  or  to  it  and 
to  the  essence  of  God,  that  is  unbelief  {kufr).  Rather,  the 
doing  belongs  to  the  essence  of  God  by  His  Power. 

The  ninth  Quality  necessary  in  God  is  Knowledge  {ilm). 
It  is  an  eternal  quality  subsisting  in  the  essence  of  God,  an 
entity  by  which  what  is  known  is  revealed  with  a  revealing  of 
the  nature  of  complete  comprehension  (ihata),  without  any 
concealment  having  preceded.  It  is  connected  with  the 
necessary,  the  possible  and  the  impossible.  He  knows  His 
own  essence  aud  qualities  by  His  Knowledge.  And  He  knows 
impossibilities  in  the  sense  that  He  knows  that  a  partner  is 
impossible  to  Him  and  that,  if  one  existed,  corruption  would 
accrue  from  it.  And  Knowledge  has  an  eternal,  accomplished 
connection  only.  For  God  knows  these  things  that  have  been 
mentioned  from  all  eternity  with  a  complete  knowledge  that 
is  not  by  way  of  opinion  {za7in)  or  doubt  {shakk) ;  because 
opinion  and  doubt  are  impossibilities  in  God.  And  the  mean- 
ing of  the  saying,  *' without  any  concealment  having  pre- 
ceded," is  that  He  knows  things  eternally  ;  He  is  not  first 
ignorant  of  them  and  then  knowing  them.  But  an  origi- 
nated being  [hadith)  is  ignorant  of  a  thing  and  then  knows  it. 
And  God's  Knowledge  has  no  potential  connection  in  the  sense 
that  there  is  a  potentiality  that  such  and  such  should  be 
revealed  by  it,  because  that  involves  that  the  thing  in  ques- 
tion has  not  been  actually  revealed,  and  lack  of  actual  reveal- 
ing of  it  is  ignorance. 

The  tenth  Quality  necessary  in  God  is  Life  [hay ah).  It  is 
a  quality  which  in  him  in  whom  it  subsists  validates  percep- 
tion, as  knowledge  and  hearing  and  seeing  :  that  is,  it  is  valid 
that  he  should  be  described  therewith.  But  being  character- 
ized by  actual  perception  does  not  necessarily  follow  from 
possessing  the  quality.  Life.  And  it  is  not  connected  with 
anything,  entity  or  non-entity. 

The  proof  that  Knowledge  and  Power  and  Will  and  Life 
are  necessary  is  the  existence  of  the  created  things.     Because* 


AL-FUDALI  333 

if  any  one  of  these  four  is  denied,  why  does  the  created  world 
exist  ?    So,  since  the  created  things  exist,  we  know  that  God 
is  to  be  described  by  these  qualities.     And  the  reason  of  the 
existence  of  the  created  things  depending  on  these  four  is 
this.     He  who  makes  a  thing  does  not  make  it  except  when 
he  knows  the  thing.     Then  he  wills  the  thing  which  he  would 
make  and,  after  his  willing,  he  busies  himself  with  making  it 
by  his  power.     Further,  it  is  known  that  the  maker  cannot 
but  be  living.    And  Knowledge  and  Will  and  Power  are 
called  qualities  of  impression  [sifat  at-ta'ihir),  for  making  an 
impression   depends  upon  them.     Because  he  who  wills  a 
thing  must  have  knowledge  of  it  before  he  aims  at  it ;  then, 
after  he  has  aimed  at  it,  he  busies  himself  with  doing  it.    For 
example,  when  there  is  something  in  your  house  and  you 
wish  to  take  it,  your  knowledge  precedes  your  wish  to  take 
it,  and  after  your  wish  to  take  it,  you  take  it  actually.     The 
connection  of  these  qualities,  then,  is  in  a  certain  order,  in 
the  case  of  an  originated  being  ;  first  comes  the  knowledge  of 
the  thing,  then  the  aiming  at  it,  then  the  doing.     But  in  the 
case  of  God,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  sequence  in  His 
qualities,  except  in  our  comprehension ;  in  that,  Knowledge 
comes  first,  then  Will,  then  Power.     But  as  for  the  making 
of  an  impression  externally,  there  is  no  sequence  in  the  qual- 
ities of  God.      It  is  not  said  that  Knowledge  comes  into 
actual  connection,  then  Will,  then  Power;  because  all  that 
belongs  to  originated  beings.     Order  is  only  according  to  our 
comprehensions . 

The  eleventh  and  twelfth  Qualities  of  God  are  Hearing 
(sam)  and  Seeing  (basar).  These  are  two  qualities  subsisting 
in  the  essence  of  God  and  connected  with  every  entity  ;  that 
is,  by  them  is  revealed  every  entity,  necessary  or  possible. 
And  Hearing  and  Seeing  are  connected  with  the  essence  of 
God  and  His  qualities*;  that  is.  His  essence  and  qualities  are 
revealed  to  Him  by  His  Seeing  and  Hearing,  besides  the  re- 
vealing of  His  Knowledge.  And  God  hears  the  essences  of 
Zayd  and  Amr  and  a  wall  and  He  sees  them.  And  He  hears 
the  sound  of  the  possessor  of  a  sound  and  He  sees  it,  that  is 


334  APPENDIX   I 

the  sound.  Then,  if  you  say,  **  Hearing  a  sound  is  plain,  but 
hearing  the  essence  of  Zayd  and  the  essence  of  a  wall  is  not 
plain  ;  so,  too,  the  connection  of  seeing  with  sounds,  for 
sounds  are  heard  only,"  we  reply,  *'  Belief  in  this  is  incum- 
bent upon  us  because  these  two  qualities  are  connected  with 
every  entity  ;  but  the  how  (  kayfiya)  of  the  connection  is  un- 
known to  us.  God  hears  the  essence  of  Zayd,  but  we  do  not 
know  how  hearing  is  connected  with  that  essence.  And  it  is 
not  meant  that  He  hears  the  walking  of  the  essence  of  Zayd, 
for  the  hearing  of  his  walking  enters  into  the  hearing  of  all 
the  sounds  (sawt),  but  what  is  meant  is  that  He  hears  the 
essence  of  Zayd  and  his  body  (juththa),  besides  hearing  his 
walking.  But  we  do  not  know  how  the  hearing  of  God  is 
connected  with  the  person  (nafs)  of  the  essence.  This  is  what 
is  binding  upon  every  individual,  male  and  female — Our  tnist 
is  in  God  ! 

The  proof  of  Hearing  and  Seeing  is  the  saying  of  God  that 
He  is  a  Hearer  and  Seer.  And  know  that  the  connection  of 
Hearing  and  Seeing  in  relation  to  originated  things  is  an 
eternal,  potential  connection  before  the  existence  of  these, 
and  after  their  existence  it  is  a  temporal,  accomplished  con- 
nection. That  is,  after  their  existence,  they  are  revealed  to 
God  by  His  Hearing  and  Seeing  besides  the  revealing  of  His 
Knowledge.  So  they  have  two  connections.  And  in  relation 
to  God  and  His  qualities,  the  connection  is  eternal,  accom- 
plished, in  the  sense  that  His  essence  and  His  qualities  are 
revealed  to  Him  from  all  eternity  through  His  Hearing  and 
Seeing.  So,  God  hears  His  essence  and  all  His  existential  qual- 
ities [all  except  the  states  and  the  negative  qualities],  Power, 
Hearing,  and  all  the  rest ;  but  we  do  not  know  how  the  con- 
nection is,  and  He  sees  His  essence  and  His  qualities  of  ex- 
istence, Power,  Seeing  and  the  rest,  but  again  we  do  not 
know  how  the  connection  is.  The  preceding  statement  that 
Hearing  and  Seeing  are  connected  with  every  entity  is  the 
opinion  of  as-Sanusi  and  those  who  follow  him  ;  it  is  the 
preponderating  one.  But  it  is  said,  also,  that  Hearing  is 
only  connected  with  sounds  and  Seeing  with  objects  of  vision. 


AL-FUDALI  335 

And  God's  Hearing  is  not  with  ear  or  ear-hole,  and  His  Seeing 
is  not  with  eyeball  or  eyelid. 

The  thirteenth  Quality  of  God  is  Speech  {kalam).  It  is  an 
eternal  quality,  subsisting  in  God's  essence,  not  a  word  or 
sound,  and  far  removed  from  order  of  preceding  and  follow- 
ing, from  inflection  and  structure,  opposed  to  the  speech  of 
originated  beings.  And  by  the  Speech  that  is  necessary  to  God 
is  not  meant  the  Glorious  Expressions  [lafz)  revealed  to  the 
Prophet,  because  these  are  originated  and  the  quality  that 
subsists  in  the  essence  of  God  is  eternal.  And  these  embrace 
preceding  and  following,  inflection  and  chapters  and  verses  ; 
but  the  eternal  quality  is  bare  of  all  these  things.  It  has  no 
verses  or  chapters  or  inflections,  because  such  belong  to  the 
speech  which  embraces  letters  and  sounds,  and  the  eternal 
quality  is  far  removed  from  letters  and  sounds,  as  has  pre- 
ceded. And  those  Glorious  Expressions  are  not  a  guide  to 
the  eternal  quality  in  the  sense  that  the  eternal  quality  can 
be  understood  from  them.  "What  is  understood  from  these 
expressions  equals  what  would  be  understood  from  the  eternal 
quality  if  the  veil  were  removed  from  us  and  we  could  hear 
it.  In  short,  these  expressions  are  a  guide  to  its  meaning, 
and  this  meaning  equals  what  would  be  understood  from  the 
eternal  Speech  which  subsists  in  the  essence  of  God.  So  medi- 
tate this  distinction,  for  many  have  erred  in  it.  And  both 
the  Glorious  Expressions  and  the  eternal  quality  are  called 
Qur'an  and  the  Word  (kalam)  of  God.  But  the  Glorious  Ex- 
pressions are  created  and  written  on  the  Preserved  Tablet 
[al-lawh-al-mahfuz) ;  Jibril  brought  them  down  [i.e.,  revealed 
them]  to  the  Prophet  after  that  they  had  been  brought  down 
in  the  Night  of  Decree  [laylatu-l-qadr ;  Qur.  97,  1)  to  the 
Mighty  House  {haytu-l-izza),  a  place  in  the  Heaven  nearest  to 
the  earth  ;  it  was  written  in  books  (sahifas)  and  placed  in  the 
Mighty  House.  It  is  said  that  it  was  brought  down  to  the 
Mighty  House  all  at  once  and  then  brought  down  to  the 
Prophet  in  twenty  years,  and  some  say,  in  twenty-five.  And 
it  is  also  said  that  it  was  brought  down  to  the  Mighty  House 
only  to  the  amount  that  was  to  be  revealed  each  year  and  not 
all  at  once. 


336  APPENDIX   I 

And  that  which  was  brought  down  to  the  Prophet  was  ex- 
pression and  meaning.  And  it  is  said  also  that  only  the  mean- 
ing was  brought  down  to  him.  There  is  a  conflict  of  opinion 
on  this  ;  some  say  that  the  Prophet  clothed  the  meaning  with 
expressions  of  his  own,  and  others,  that  he  who  so  clothed  the 
meaning,  was  Jibril.  But  the  truth  is  that  it  was  sent  down 
in  expressions  and  meaning.  In  short,  the  quality  subsisting 
in  the  essence  of  God  is  not  a  letter  nor  a  sound.  And  the 
Mu'tazilites  called  in  doubt  the  existence  of  a  kind  of  Speech 
without  letters.  But  the  People  of  the  Sunna  answered  that 
because  thoughts  in  the  mind  [hadiih  an-nafs),  a  kind  of 
speech  with  which  an  individual  speaks  to  himself,  are  with- 
out letter  or  sound,  there  exists  a  kind  of  speech  without  let- 
ters or  words.  By  this  the  People  of  the  Sunna  do  not  wish 
to  institute  a  comparison  between  the  Speech  of  God  and 
thoughts  in  the  mind  ;  for  the  Speech  of  God  is  eternal  and 
thoughts  in  the  mind  are  originated.  They  wished  to  dis- 
prove the  contention  of  the  Mu'tazilites  when  they  urged  that 
speech  cannot  exist  without  letter  or  sound. 

The  proof  of  the  necessity  of  Speech  in  God  is  His  saying 
(Qur.  4,  162) ;  "  and  God  spoke  to  Moses."  So  He  has  estab- 
lished Speech  for  Himself.  And  Speech  connects  with  that 
with  which  Knowledge  connects,  of  necessary  and  possible 
and  impossible.  But  the  connection  of  Knowledge  with  these 
is  a  connection  of  revealing,  in  the  sense  that  they  are  re- 
vealed to  God  by  His  Knowledge  ;  and  the  connection  of 
Speech  with  them  is  a  connection  of  proof,  in  the  sense  that 
if  the  veil  were  taken  away  from  us  and  we  heard  the  eternal 
Speech  we  would  understand  these  things  from  it. 

The  fourteenth  Quality  subsisting  in  God  is  Being  Power- 
ful {kawn  qadir) .  It  is  a  Quality  subsisting  in  His  essence, 
not  an  entity  and  not  a  non-entity.  It  is  not  Power,  but  be- 
tween it  and  Power  is  a  reciprocal  inseparability.  When 
Power  exists  in  an  essence,  the  quality  called  "  Being  Power- 
ful "  exists  in  that  essence,  equally  whether  that  essence  is 
eternal  or  originated.  So,  God  creates  in  the  essence  of  Zayd 
Power  actual,  and  He  creates  also  in  it  the  quality  called 


AL-FUDALI  337 

Zayd's  Being  Powerful.  This  quality  is  called  a  state  [hal) 
and  Power  is  a  cause  (ilia)  in  it  in  the  case  of  created  things. 
But  in  the  case  of  God,  Power  is  not  said  to  be  a  cause  in  His 
Being  Powerful ;  it  is  only  said  that  between  Power  and  God's 
Being  Powerful  there  is  a  reciprocal  inseparability.  The 
Mu'tazilites  hold  also  the  reciprocal  inseparability  between 
the  Power  of  an  originated  being  and  its  Being  Powerful. 
But  they  do  not  say  that  the  second  quality  is  by  the  creation 
of  God,  only  that  when  God  creates  Power  in  an  originated 
being,  there  proceeds  from  the  Power  a  quality  called  Being 
Powerful,  without  creation. 

The  Fifteenth  Quality  necessary  in  God  is  Being  a  Wilier 
{kawn  muj'id).  It  is  a  quality  subsisting  in  His  essence,  not 
an  entity  and  not  a  non-entity.  It  is  called  a  state  {hal)  and  it 
is  not  Will,  equally  whether  the  essence  is  eternal  or  created. 
So,  God  creates  in  the  essence  of  Zayd  Will  actual,  and  He 
creates  in  it  the  quality  called  Zayd's  Being  a  Wilier.  And 
what  is  said  above,  about  the  disagreement  between  the  Mu'- 
tazilites and  the  People  of  the  Sunna  on  Being  Powerful,  ap- 
plies also  to  Being  a  Wilier. 

[The  same  thing  applies  exactly  to  Qualities  Sixteen,  Sev- 
enteen, Eighteen,  Nineteen  and  Twenty, — Being  a  Knower 
{alim),  a  Living  One  [hayy),  a  Hearer  {sami),  a  Seer  {hasir),  a 
Speaker  (imitakallim).] 

Notice.  The  Qualities,  Power,  Will,  Knowledge,  Life, 
Hearing,  Seeing,  Speech,  which  have  preceded,  are  called, 
"  Qualities  consisting  of  ideas "  {si/at  al-ma'ani,  thought- 
qualities  as  opposed  to  active  qualities  ;  see  below) ;  on  account 
of  the  connection  of  the  general  with  the  particular  (idafatu- 
l-amm  lil-khass),  or  the  explanatory  connection  {al-idafatu-l- 
hayaniyd).  And  those  which  follow  these,  God's  Being  Pow- 
erful, etc.,  are  called  "  Qualities  derived  from  ideas  "  {aifat  ma^ 
nawiya),  by  way  of  derivation  (nisba)  from  the  ''Qualities 
consisting  of  ideas,"  because  they  are  inseparable  from  them 
in  a  thing  eternal  and  x^roceed  from  them  in  a  thing  originated, 
according  to  what  has  preceded. 

And  the  Mataridites  added  to  the  **  Qualities  consisting  of 


338  APPENDIX   I 

Ideas,"  an  Eighth  Quality  and  called  it,  Making  to  Be  [tak- 
ivin).  It  is  a  quality  and  an  entity  like  the  rest  of  the  "Qual- 
ities consisting  of  Ideas  "  ;  if  the  veil  were  removed  from  us 
we  would  see  it,  just  as  we  would  see  the  other  "  Qualities 
consisting  of  Ideas  "  if  the  veil  were  removed  from  us.  But 
the  Ash'arites  opposed  them  and  urged  that  there  was  no  ad- 
vantage in  having  a  quality,  Making  to  Be,  besides  Power, 
because  the  Mataridites  said  that  God  brought  into  existence 
and  out  of  existence  by  the  quality  of  Making  to  Be.  Then 
these  replied  that  Power  prepared  the  possibility  for  existence, 
that  is,  made  it  ready  to  receive  existence  after  it  had  not 
been  ready ;  that  thereafter  Making  to  Be  brought  it  into  ex- 
istence actually.  The  Ash'arites  replied  that  the  possible  was 
ready  for  existence  without  anything  further.  And  on  ac- 
count of  their  having  added  this  quality,  they  said  that  the 
active  qualities  {sifat  al-af^al),  such  as  Creating  (kJialq), 
Bringing  to  Life  {ihya),  Sustaining  {razq),  Bringing  to  Death 
[imata),  were  eternal,  because  these  expressions  are  names  of 
the  quality  Making  to  Be,  which  is  a  quality  and  an  entity,  ac- 
cording to  them.  But  it  is  eternal;  therefore  these  active 
qualities  are  eternal.  But  according  to  the  Ash'arites,  the 
active  qualities  are  originated,  because  they  are  only  names 
of  the  connections  of  Power.  So  Bringing  to  Life  is  a  name 
for  the  connection  of  Power  with  Life,  and  Sustaining  is  a 
name  for  the  connection  of  Power  with  the  creature  to  be  sus- 
tained, and  Creating  is  a  name  for  its  connection  with  the 
thing  to  be  created,  and  Bringing  to  Death,  a  name  for  its 
connection  with  death.  And  the  connections  of  Power,  ac- 
cording to  them,  are  originated. 

And  among  the  Fifty  Articles  are  twenty  which  express  the 
opposites  of  the  twenty  above.  They  are  Non-existence,  the 
opposite  to  Existence. 

The  Second,  Origin  Qiuduth),  is  the  opposite  of  Priority. 

The  Third,  Transitoriness  {/ana),  is  the  opposite  of  Con- 
tinuance. 

The  Fourth,  Resemblance  (mumathala),  is  the  opposite  of 
Difference.     It  is  impossible  that  God  should  resemble  orig- 


AL-FUBALI  839 

mated  things  in  any  of  those  things  with  which  they  are  de- 
scribed ;  time  has  no  effect  upon  Him  and  He  has  not  a  place 
or  movement  or  rest ;  and  He  is  not  described  with  colors  or 
with  a  direction  ;  it  is  not  said  with  regard  to  Him  that  He  is 
above  such  a  body,  or  on  the  right  of  such  a  body.  And  He 
has  no  direction  from  Him,  So  it  is  not  said,  "  I  am  under 
God."  And  the  saying  of  the  commonalty,  *'  I  am  under  our 
Lord,"  and  "My  Lord  is  over  me,"  is  to  be  disapproved. 
Unbelief  is  to  be  feared  on  the  part  of  him  who  holds  the  use 
of  it  to  be  an  article  of  his  faith. 

The  Fifth  is  having  need  of  a  locus  {ihtiyazila  mahall),  that 
is,  an  essence  in  which  He  may  subsist,  or  a  Specifier,  that  is 
a  bringer-into-existence.  This  is  the  opposite  of  Self-sub- 
sistence. 

The  Sixth  is  Multiplicity  {ta'addud),  in  the  sense  of  com- 
bination in  the  essence  or  the  qualities,  or  the  existence  of  a 
being  similar  in  essence  or  qualities  or  acts.  This  is  the  op- 
posite of  Unity. 

The  Seventh  is  Weakness  [ajz)  and  it  is  the  opposite  of 
Power.  So,  being  unequal  to  any  possibility  is  impossible  in 
God. 

The  Eighth  is  Unwillingness  (karaha,  lit.  dislike).  It  is  the 
opposite  of  Will,  and  it  is  impossible  in  God  that  He  should 
bring  into  existence  anything  of  the  world,  along  with  Un- 
willingness toward  it,  that  is,  lack  of  Will.  Entities  are  pos- 
sibilities which  God  brought  into  existence  by  His  Will  and 
Choice  {ikhtiyar).  And  it  is  derived  from  the  necessity  of  Will 
in  God,  that  the  existence  of  created  things  is  not  through 
causation  [taHil),  or  by  way  of  nature  [tah).  And  the  dif- 
ference between  the  two  is  that  the  entity  which  exists  through 
causation  is  whatever  exists  whenever  its  cause  exists,  without 
dependence  on  another  thing.  The  movement  of  the  finger 
is  the  cause  of  the  movement  of  the  ring  ;  when  the  one  exists, 
the  second  exists,  without  dependence  on  anything  else.  And 
the  entity  which  exists,  by  way  of  nature,  depends  upon  a 
condition  and  upon  the  nullifying  of  a  hindrance.  So,  fire 
does  not  burn  except  on  the  condition  of  contact  with  wood 


340  APPENDIX   I 

and  the  nullifying  of  moistness  which  is  the  hindrance  of  its 
burning.  For  fire  burns  by  its  nature  according  to  those  who 
hold  the  doctrine  of  nature — Whom  may  God  curse  ! — But 
the  truth  is,  that  God  creates  the  being  burned  in  the  wood 
when  it  is  in  contact  with  the  fire,  just  as  He  creates  the 
movement  of  the  ring  when  movement  of  the  finger  exists. 
And  there  is  no  such  thing  as  existence  through  causation  or 
nature.  So  it  is  an  impossibility  in  God  that  there  should  be 
a  cause  in  the  world  which  proceeds  from  Him  without  His 
choice,  or  that  there  should  be  a  course  of  nature  and  that  the 
world  should  exist  thereby. 

The  Ninth  is  Ignorance  [jahl).  Ignorance  of  any  possible 
thing  is  impossible  in  God,  equally  whether  it  is  simple,  that 
is,  lack  of  knowledge  of  a  thing ;  or  compound,  that  is,  per- 
ception of  a  thing  as  different  from  what  it  really  is.  And  In- 
attention [ghafala)  and  Neglect  [dhuliul)  are  impossible  in 
God.     This  is  the  opposite  of  Knowledge. 

The  Tenth  is  Death  {mawt).     It  is  the  opposite  of  Life. 

The  Eleventh  is  Deafness  (samam).  It  is  the  opposite  of 
Hearing. 

The  Twelfth  is  Blindness  {ama).  It  is  the  opposite  of  See- 
ing. 

The  Thirteenth  is  Dumbness  {kharas).  In  it  is  the  idea  of 
Silence  {bakam)  and  it  is  the  opposite  of  Speech. 

The  Fourteenth  is  God's  Being  Weak  [hawn  ajiz).  It  is 
the  opposite  of  His  Being  Powerful. 

The  Fifteenth  is  His  Being  an  Unwilling  One  [hawn  karih). 
It  is  the  opposite  of  His  Being  a  Wilier. 

The  Sixteenth  is  His  Being  an  Ignorant  One  [kawnjaliil). 
It  is  the  opposite  of  His  Being  a  Knower. 

The  Seventeenth  is  His  Being  a  Dead  One  [kawn  mayyit). 
It  is  the  opposite  of  His  Being  a  Living  One. 

The  Eighteenth  is  His  Being  Deaf  [asamm).  It  is  the  op- 
posite of  His  Being  a  Hearer. 

The  Nineteenth  is  His  Being  Blind  (a'ma).  It  is  the  op- 
posite of  His  Being  a  Seer. 

The  Twentieth  is  His  Being  Silent  (abkam).     In  it  is  the 


AL-FUDALI  341 

idea  of  Dumbness  (kharas)  and  it  is  the  opposite  of  His  Being 
a  Speaker. 

All  these  twenty  are  impossible  in  God.  And  know  that  the 
proof  of  each  one  of  the  twenty  qualities  necessary  in  God 
establishes  the  existence  of  that  quality  in  Him  and  denies  to 
Him  its  op230site.  And  the  proofs  of  the  seven  thought-quali- 
ties are  proofs  of  the  seven  derived  from  these.  Thus,  there 
are  Forty  Articles ;  twenty  of  them  are  necessary  in  God ; 
twenty  are  denied  in  Him  ;  and  there  are  twenty  general 
proofs,  each  proof  establishing  a  quality  and  annulling  its 
oj)posite. 

Notice.  Some  say  that  things  are  four,  entities,  non-en- 
tities, states  and  relations  {Vtiharat).  The  entities  are  like  the 
essence  of  Zayd  which  we  see  ;  the  non-entities  are  like  your 
child  before  it  is  created  ;  the  states  are  like  Being  Powerful ; 
and  so,  too,  the  relations,  like  the  establishing  of  standing  in 
Zayd.  This — I  mean  that  things  are  four — is  the  view  which 
as-Sanusi  follows  in  his  Sughi^a,  for  he  asserts  in  it  the  ex- 
istence of  states  and  makes  the  necessary  qualities  to  be  twenty. 
But  elsewhere,  he  follows  the  opinion  which  denies  states, 
and  that  is  the  right  view. 

According  to  that  view,  the  Qualities  are  thirteen  in  number, 
because  the  seven  derived  qualities — God's  Being  Powerful, 
etc.,  drop  out.  God  has  no  quality  called  Being  Powerful, 
because  the  right  view  is  denial  that  states  are  things.  Ac- 
cording to  this,  then,  things  are  three  : — entities,  non-entities 
and  relations.  Then  when  the  seven  derived  qualities  drop 
out  from  the  twenty  necessary  qualities,  seven  drop  also  from 
the  opposites,  and  there  is  no  quality  called,  Being  "Weak, 
etc.,  and  there  is  no  need  to  number  these  among  the  im- 
possibilities. So,  the  impossibilities  are  thirteen  also ;  at 
least,  if  existence  is  reckoned  as  a  quality.  That  it  should  be 
is  the  opinion  of  all  except  al-Ash'ari.  But  the  opinion  of  al- 
Ash'ari  was  that  Existence  is  the  self  (a^/n)  of  an  entity.  So, 
the  existence  of  God  is  the  self  of  His  essence  and  not  a 
quality.  The  necessary  qualities,  on  that  view,  are  twelve. 
Priority  and  Continuance  and  Difference  and  Self-subsistence 


342  APPENDIX   I 

— expressed  also  as  Absolute  Independence — and  Unity  and 
Power  and  Will  and  Knowledge  and  Life  and  Hearing  and 
Seeing  and  Speech  ;  and  the  derived  qualities  drop  out,  be- 
cause their  existence  is  based  upon  the  view  that  there  are 
things  called  states  ;  but  the  right  view  is  the  opposite. 

And  if  you  wish  to  instruct  the  commonalty  in  the  qualities 
of  God,  then  state  them  as  names  {asma)  derived  from  the 
qualities  just  mentioned.  So  it  is  said  that  God  is  an  Entity. 
Prior,  Different  from  originated  things.  Independent  of  every- 
thing, One,  Powerful,  a  Wilier,  a  Knower,  Living,  a  Hearer, 
a  Seer,  a  Speaker.     And  they  should  know  their  opposites. 

And  know  that  some  of  the  Shaykhs  distinguish  between 
states  and  relationships  and  say  of  both  that  they  are  not  en- 
tities and  also  not  non-entities.  But  each  has  a  reality  in 
itself,  except  that  a  state  has  a  connection  with  and  a  subsist- 
ence in  an  essence,  and  a  relation  has  no  connection  with  an 
essence.  And  it  is  said  that  a  relation  has  a  reality  outside 
of  the  mind.  But  to  this  it  is  opposed  that  a  relation  is  a 
quality,  and  if  it  has  no  connection  with  an  essence  and  has  a 
reality  outside  of  the  mind,  where  is  the  thing  qualified  by  it  ? 
A  quality  does  not  subsist  in  itself,  but  must  needs  have  a 
thing  which  it  qualifies.  So  the  truth  is  that  relations  have 
no  reality  except  in  the  mind.  And  they  are  of  two  kinds  ; 
the  invented  relation  {iHibara  ikhtiraH)^  it  is  that  which  has  no 
ground  in  existence,  as  your  making  a  generous  man  niggard- 
ly ;  and  second,  the  apprehended  relation  {mtizaH,  claiming), 
it  is  that  which  has  ground  outside  of  your  mind,  as  asserting 
the  subsistence  of  Zayd,  for  that  may  be  claimed  from  your 
saying,  "  Zayd  subsists"  ;  so  the  describing  of  Zayd  as  sub- 
sisting is  existent  outside  of  your  mind. 

The  forty-first  Article  is  Possibility  in  the  case  of  God. 
It  is  incumbent  uj)on  every  mukallaf  that  he  should  believe 
that  it  is  possible  for  God  to  create  good  and  evil,  to  create 
Islam  in  Zayd  and  unbelief  in  Amr,  knowledge  in  one  of  them 
and  ignorance  in  the  other.  And  another  of  the  things,  belief 
in  which  is  incumbent  upon  every  mukallaf,  is  that  the  good 
and  the  bad  of  things  is  by  Destiny  [gada)  and  Decree  {qadar). 


AL-FUDALI  343 

And  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  meaning  of  des- 
tiny and  decree.  It  is  said  that  destiny  is  the  will  of  God 
and  the  eternal  (azali)  connection  of  that  will ;  and  decree  is 
God's  bringing  into  existence  the  thing  in  agreement  with  the 
will.  So  the  Will  of  God  which  is  connected  eternally  with 
your  becoming  a  learned  man  or  a  Sultan  is  destiny  ;  and  the 
bringing  knowledge  into  existence  in  you,  after  your  exist- 
ence, or  the  Sultanshi^D,  in  agreement  with  the  Will,  is  decree. 
And  it  is  said  that  destiny  is  God's  eternal  knowledge  and  its 
connection  with  the  thing  known  ;  and  decree  is  God's  bring- 
ing things  into  existence  in  agreement  with  His  knowledge. 
So,  God's  knowing  that  which  is  connected  eternally  with  a 
person's  becoming  a  learned  man  after  he  enters  existence  is 
destiny,  and  the  bringing  knowledge  into  existence  in  that 
man  after  he  enters  existence  is  decree.  And  according  to 
each  of  these  two  views,  destiny  is  prior  [qaclim),  because  it  is 
one  of  the  qualities  of  God,  whether  Will  or  Knowledge  ; 
and  decree  is  originated,  because  it  is  bringing  into  existence, 
and  bringing  into  existence  is  one  of  the  connections  of  Power, 
and  the  connections  of  Power  are  originated. 

And  the  proof  that  possible  things  are  possible  in  the  case 
of  God  is  that  there  is  general  agreement  on  their  possibility. 
If  the  doing  of  any  possible  thing  were  incumbent  upon  God, 
the  possible  would  be  turned  into  a  necessary  thing.  And  if 
the  doing  of  a  possible  thing  were  hindered  from  Him,  the  pos- 
sible would  be  turned  into  an  impossible.  But  the  turning  of 
the  possible  into  a  necessary  or  an  impossible  is  false.  By 
this,  you  may  know  that  there  is  nothing  incumbent  upon 
God,  against  the  doctrine  of  the  Mu'tazilites,  who  say  that  it 
is  incumbent  upon  God  to  do  that  which  is  best  [salah)  for 
the  creature.  So,  it  would  be  incumbent  upon  Him  that  He 
should  sustain  the  creature,  but  this  is  falsehood  against  Him 
and  a  lie  from  which  He  is  far  removed.  He  creates  faith  in 
Zayd,  for  example,  and  gives  him  knowledge  out  of  His  free 
grace,  without  there  being  any  necessity  upon  Him.  And  one 
of  the  arguments  which  may  be  brought  against  the  Mu'tazil- 
ites  is  that  afflictions  come  upon  little  children,  such  as  ail- 


344  APPENDIX  I 

ments  and  diseases.  And  in  this  there  is  not  that  which  is 
best  for  them.  So,  if  doing  that  which  is  best  is  incumbent 
upon  Him,  why  do  afflictions  descend  upon  little  children  ? 
For  they  say  that  God  could  not  abandon  that  which  is  incum- 
bent upon  Him,  for  abandoning  it  would  be  defect,  and  God 
is  far  removed  from  defect,  by  Agreement.  And  God's  re- 
warding the  obedient  is  a  grace  from  Him,  and  His  punishing 
the  rebellious  is  justice  from  Him.  For  obedience  does  not 
advantage  Him,  nor  rebellion  injure  Him  ;  He  is  the  Advan- 
tager  and  the  Injurer.  And  these  acts  of  obedience  or  rebellion 
are  only  signs  of  God's  rewarding  or  punishing  those  described 
by  them.  Then  him  whom  He  wills  to  draw  near  to  Himself, 
He  helps  to  obedience :  and  in  him  whose  abandoning  and 
rejection  He  wills,  He  creates  rebellion.  And  all  acts  of  good 
and  bad  are  by  the  creation  of  God,  for  He  creates  the  creat- 
ure and  that  which  the  creature  does,  as  He  has  said  (Qur. 
37,  94),  "  and  God  hath  created  you  and  that  which  ye  do." 

And  the  belief  is  also  incumbent  that  God  may  be  seen  in 
the  Other  World  by  believers,  for  He  has  joined  the  seeing 
{ru'ya)  of  Him  with  the  standing  fast  of  the  mountain  in  His 
saying  (Qur.  7,  139),  "And  if  it  standeth  fast  in  its  place,  thou 
wilt  see  Me."  And  the  standing  fast  of  the  mountain  was 
possible  :  then,  that  which  is  connected  with  it  of  seeing  must 
also  have  been  possible  ;  because  what  is  connected  with  the 
possible  is  possible.  But  our  seeing  God  must  be  without 
inquiring  how  [hila  kayfa) ;  it  is  not  like  our  seeing  one  an- 
other. God  is  not  seen  in  a  direction,  nor  in  a  color,  nor  in  a 
body  ;  He  is  far  removed  from  that.  And  the  Mu'tazilites— 
may  God  make  them  vile  ! — deny  the  seeing  of  God.  That  is 
one  of  their  perverse  and  false  articles  of  belief.  And  another 
of  their  corrupt  articles  is  their  saying  that  the  creature  cre- 
ates his  own  actions.  For  this,  they  are  called  Qadarites,  be- 
cause they  say  that  the  actions  of  the  creature  are  by  his  own 
qudra  (power),  just  as  the  sect  which  holds  that  the  creature 
is  forced  to  the  action  he  does,  is  called  Jabrite,  derived  from 
their  holding  a  being  forced  {jahr)  on  the  part  of  the  creature, 
and  a  being  compelled.     It,  too,  is  a  perverse  article.     And 


AL-FUDALI  345 

the  truth  is  that  the  creature  does  not  create  his  own  actions 
and  is  not  forced,  but  that  God  creates  the  actions  which  issue 
from  the  creature,  along  with  the  creature's  having  a  free 
choice  [ikhtiyar]  in  them.  As-Sa'd  [Sa'd  ad-Din  at-Taftazani, 
see  above]  said,  in  his  commentary  on  the  Articles,  "  It  is  not 
possible  to  render  this  free  choice  by  any  expression,  but 
the  creature  finds  a  difference  between  the  movement  of  his 
hand  when  he  moves  it  himself  and  when  the  wind  moves  it 
against  his  will. " 

And  to  that  which  is  possible  in  God  belongs  also  the  send- 
ing of  a  number  of  Apostles  {rasuls).  And  God's  sending  them 
is  by  His  grace,  and  by  way  of  necessity,  as  has  preceded. 

And  it  is  necessary  to  confess  that  the  most  excellent  of  cre- 
ated beings,  absolutely,  is  our  Prophet  [Muhammad],  and 
there  follow  him  in  excellency  the  rest  of  the  Endowed  with 
Earnestness  and  Patience  {ulu-l-azm;  see  Qur.  46,  34);  they 
are  our  Lord  Ibrahim,  our  Lord  Musa,  our  Lord  Isa,  and  our 
Lord  Nuh  ;  and  this  is  their  order  in  excellency.  And  that 
they  are  five  along  with  our  Prophet,  and  four  after  him  is 
the  correct  view.  And  it  is  said,  too,  that  the  Endowed  with 
Earnestness  and  Patience  are  more  numerous.  And  there  fol- 
low them  in  excellency  the  rest  of  the  Apostles.  Then,  the 
rest  of  the  Prophets  (nabis),  then  the  Angels. 

And  it  is  necessary  to  confess  that  God  has  aided  them  with 
miracles  {mu^jizat)  and  that  He  has  distinguished  our  Prophet 
in  that  he  is  the  seal  of  the  Apostles,  and  that  his  law 
{shar)  will  not  be  abrogated  till  time  is  fulfilled.  And  Isa, 
after  his  descent,  will  judge  according  to  the  law  of  our  Proph- 
et. It  is  said  that  he  will  take  it  from  the  Qur'an  and  the 
Sunna,  It  is  said  also  that  he  will  go  to  the  Glorious  Tomb 
[of  Muhammad]  and  learn  from  him.  And  know  that  he  will 
abrogate  one  part  of  the  law  of  our  Prophet  with  a  later  part, 
just  as  the  waiting  period  of  a  woman  after  the  death  of  her 
husband  was  changed  from  a  year  to  four  months  and  ten  days. 
And  in  this  there  is  no  defect. 

And  it  is  necessary  also  that  every  mukallaf,  male  and 
female,  should  know  in  detail  the  Apostles  who  are  mentioned 


346  APPENDIX   I 

in  the  Qur'an,  and  should  believe  in  them  in  detail.  As  for 
the  other  Prophets,  belief  is  necessary  in  them  as  a  whole. 
As-Sa'd  handed  down  an  authority  in  his  commentary  on  the 
Maqasid  that  belief  in  all  the  Prophets  as  a  whole  suffices, 
but  he  was  not  followed. 

And  someone  put  them  into  verse  as  follows : 

"  There  is  imposed  upon  every  inukallaf  2.  knowledge 
Of  Prophets  in  detail,  who  have  been  named 
In  that  document  of  ours  [i.e.,  the  Qur'an].     Of  them  are 

eight 
After  ten  [i.e.,  eighteen].     And  there  remain  seven  who  are 
Idris,  Hud,  Shu'ayb,  Salih,  and  similarly, 
Dhu-1-Kifl,  Adam,  with  the  Chosen  One  [Muhammad]  they 

close." 

And  it  is  necessary  to  confess  that  the  Companions  (sahibs) 
of  the  Prophet  are  the  most  excellent  of  the  generations. 
Then  their  followers  (tabids)  ;  then  the  followers  of  their  fol- 
lowers. And  the  most  excellent  of  the  Companions  is  Abu 
Bakr,  then  Umar,  then  Uthman,  then  Ali — in  this  order. 
But  al-Alqami  said  that  our  Lady  Fatima  and  her  brother, 
our  Lord  Ibrahim,  were  absolutely  more  excellent  than  the 
Companions,  including  the  Four  [Khalifas].  And  our  Lord 
Malik  [ibn  Anas]  was  wont  to  say,  "  There  is  none  more 
excellent  than  the  children  of  the  Prophet."  This  is  that  the 
confession  of  which  is  incumbent ;  and  we  will  meet  God  con- 
fessing it,  if  it  is  His  Will. 

And  of  that  the  confession  of  which  is  also  necessary,  is 
that  the  Prophet  was  born  in  Mecca  and  died  in  al-Madina. 
It  is  incumbent  on  fathers  that  they  teach  that  to  their  chil- 
dren. Al-Ajhuri  said,  "It  is  incumbent  on  the  individual 
that  he  know  the  genealogy  of  the  Prophet  on  his  father's 
side  and  on  his  mother's."  A  statement  of  it  will  come  in  our 
Conclusion,  if  God  will.  The  learned  have  said,  "Every 
individual  ought  to  know  the  number  of  the  children  of  the 
Prophet  and  the  order  in  which  they  were  born,  for  an  individ- 


AL-FUDALT  347 

ual  ought  to  know  his  Lords,  and  they  are  the  Lords  of  the 
People."  But  they  do  not  explain,  in  what  I  have  seen, 
whether  that  is  required  {maivjub)  or  desired  {mandub) ;  the 
analogy  [qiyas]  of  things  similar  to  it  would  say  it  was 
required.  His  children  were  seven,  three  male  and  four 
female,  according  to  the  right  view.  Their  order  of  birth 
was  :  al-Qasim,  he  was  the  first  of  his  children,  then  Zaynab, 
then  Euqayya,  then  Fatima,  then  Umm  Kultlmm,  then  Abd 
Allah,  he  had  the  to-names  (laqab)  at-Tayyib  and  at-Tahir, 
which  are  to-names  of  Abd  Allah,  not  names  of  two  other  dif- 
ferent persons.  These  were  all  children  of  our  Lady  Khadija. 
And  the  seventh  was  our  Lord  Ibrahim,  born  of  Mariya,  the 
Copt.  So  it  stands.  Let  us  now  return  to  the  conclusion  of 
the  Articles. 

The  Forty- second  is  the  Veracity  {sidq)  of  the  Apostles  in 
all  their  sayings. 

The  Forty-third  is  their  trustworthiness  {amana),  that  is, 
their  being  preserved  {isnia)  from  falling  into  things  forbidden 
{muharram)  or  disliked  [makrnh). 

The  Forty-fourth  is  their  Conveying  {tabligh)  to  the 
creatures  that  which  they  were  commanded  to  convey.  The 
Forty-fifth  is  intelligence  (fatana).  These  four  things  are 
necessary  in  the  Apostles  in  the  sense  that  the  lack  of  them 
is  unthinkable.  And  Faith  depends  on  the  knowledge  of 
these,  according  to  the  controversy  between  as-Sanusi  and  his 
opponents. 

The  opposites  of  these  four  are  impossible  in  the  Apostles, 
that  is,  Lying  [hidhb),  Unfaithfulness  {khiyana)  in  a  thing 
forbidden  or  disliked,  Concealment  [kitman)  of  a  thing  they 
have  been  commanded  to  convey,  and  Stupidity  (balada). 
These  four  are  impossible  in  them,  in  the  sense  that  the  exist- 
ence of  them  is  unthinkable.  And  Faith  depends  upon  the 
knowledge  of  these,  as  has  preceded. 

These  are  Nine  and  Fortv  Articles  and  the  Fiftieth  is  the 
possibility  of  the  occurrence  of  such  fleshly  accidents  in  them 
as  do  not  lead  to  defect  in  their  lofty  rank. 

And  the  proof  of  the  existence  of  Veracity  in  them  is  that  if 


348  APPENDIX  I 

they  were  to  lie.  then  information  from  God  would  be  a  lie, 
for  He  has  guaranteed  the  claim  of  the  Apostles  by  the  mani- 
festation of  miracles  at  their  hands.  For  the  miracle  is 
revealed  in  place  of  an  utterance  from  God,  *'My  servant  is 
truthful  in  all  that  he  brings  from  Me."  That  is,  whenever 
an  Apostle  comes  to  his  people  and  says,  "  I  am  an  Apostle  to 
you  from  God,"  and  they  say  to  him,  "What  is  the  proof  of 
your  apostolate?"  then  he  shall  say,  "The  splitting  of  this 
mountain,"  for  example.  And  when  they  say  to  him,  "  Bring 
what  you  say,"  God  will  split  that  mountain  at  their  saying,  as 
a  guarantee  of  the  claim  of  the  Apostle  to  the  apostolate.  So, 
God's  splitting  the  mountain  is  sent  down  in  place  of  an  utter- 
ance from  God,  **My  servant  is  truthful  in  all  which  he 
brings  to  you  from  Me."  And  if  the  Apostle  were  lying,  this 
information  would  be  lying.  But  lying  is  impossible  in  the 
case  of  God,  so  lying  on  the  part  of  the  Apostles  is  impossible. 
And  whenever  lying  is  denied  in  them,  Veracity  is  established. 

And  as  for  the  proof  of  the  Trustworthiness,  that  is,  their 
being  preserved  internally  and  externally  from  forbidden  and 
disliked  things  ;  if  they  were  unfaithful  in  committing  such 
things,  we  would  be  commanded  to  do  the  like.  But  it  is 
impossible  that  we  could  be  commanded  to  do  a  forbidden  or 
disliked  thing,  *'for  God  does  not  command  a  vile  thing" 
(Qur.  7,  27).  And  it  is  evident  that  they  did  nothing  except 
obedience,  whether  required  or  desired,  and  "  permitted  "  {mu- 
bah)  things  entered  among  their  actions  only  to  show,  when- 
ever they  did  a  "permitted  "  thing,  that  it  was  allowable  (jaHz.) 

And  as  for  the  proof  of  Intelligence,  if  it  were  failing  in 
them,  how  would  they  be  able  to  establish  an  argument  against 
an  adversary?  But  the  Qur'an  indicates  in  more  than  one 
place,  that  they  must  establish  arguments  against  adversaries. 
And  such  establishing  of  arguments  is  only  possible  with 
intelligence. . 

And  the  proof  that  fleshly  accidents  do  befall  them  is  that 
they  do  not  cease  to  ascend  in  their  lofty  rank ;  for  the 
occurrence  of  such  accidents  is  in  them  for  increase  in  their 
lofty  rank,  for  example,   and  that  others  may  be  consoled, 


AL-FUDALI  349 

and  that  the  thoughtful  may  know  that  the  world  is  not  a 
place  of  recompense  for  the  lovers  of  God ;  since  if  it  were, 
why  should  aught  of  the  defilements  of  the  world  befall  the 
Apostles  ?  The  Blessing  of  God  be  upon  them  and  upon  their 
Mighty  Head,  our  Lord  Muhammad,  and  upon  his  family  and 
Companions  and  descendants,  all ! 

The  Fifty  Ai'ticles  are  completed  with  their  Glorious 
Proofs. 

Let  us  mention  to  you  now  somewhat  of  that  which  must 
be  held  of  the  things  whose  proofs  are  authority  {sam'i) : 
Know  that  it  must  be  believed  that  our  Prophet  has  a  Tank 
(hawd)  ;  and  ignorance  as  to  whether  it  is  on  one  side  or  the 
other  of  the  Bridge  (as-sirat)  does  not  hurt.  On  the  Day  of 
Resurrection  [yawm  al-qiyama)  the  creatures  will  go  down  to 
drink  of  it.  It  is  different  from  al-KawthaVf  which  is  a 
River  in  the  Garden. 

And  it  must  also  be  believed  that  he  will  make  intercession 
(shafa'a)  on  the  Day  of  Resurrection  in  the  midst  of  the  Judg- 
ment, when  we  shall  stand  and  long  to  depart,  even  though  it 
be  into  the  Fire.  Then  he  shall  intercede  that  they  may 
depart  from  the  Station  {mawqif) ;  and  this  intercession  be- 
longs to  him  only. 

And  it  must  also  be  believed  that  falling  into  great  sins 
(kabiras),  other  than  Unbelief  (kufr),  does  not  involve  Un- 
belief, but  repentance  [tawba]  from  the  sin  is  necessary  at 
once ;  and  if  the  sin  be  a  small  one  {saglnra)  repentance  is 
necessary  to  him  who  is  liable  to  fall  into  it.  And  repent- 
ance is  not  injured  by  returning  to  sin  ;  but  for  the  new  sin  a 
new  repentance  is  necessary. 

And  it  is  incumbent  upon  the  individual  that  he  set  aside 
arrogance  {kihr)  and  jealousy  (Jiasad)  and  slander  [ghiba)  on 
account  of  what  the  Prophet  has  said,  "  The  gates  of  the 
Heavens  have  curtains  which  reject  the  works  of  the  people  of 
arrogance,  jealousy  and  slander."  That  is,  they  prevent  them 
from  rising,  and  so  they  are  not  received.  Jealousy  is  a 
desiring  that  the  well-being  of  another  should  pass  away, 
equally  whether  it  is  desired  that  it  should  come  to  the  jeal- 


350  APPENDIX  I 

ous  one  or  not.  And  arrogance  is  considering  tlie  truth  to 
be  falsehood  and  rejecting  it,  and  despising  God's  creation. 
And  it  is  incumbent  also  upon  him  that  he  should  not  spread 
malicious  slanders  among  the  people,  for  a  tradition  has  come 
down,  "A  slanderer  (qattat)  shall  not  enter  the  Garden." 
And  jealousy  is  forbidden,  as  is  said  above,  when  the  well- 
being  does  not  lead  its  possessor  to  transgression,  and  if  it 
does,  then  desire  that  the  well-being  should  pass  away  is 
allowable. 

It  is  necessary  also  to  hold  that  some  of  those  who  commit 
great  sins  will  be  punished,  though  it  is  only  one  of  them. 

Conclusion.  Faith  (imcm),  in  the  usage  of  the  language,  is 
acknowledgment  that  something  is  true  (iasdiq),  in  general. 
In  that  way  it  is  used  by  God,  when  he  reports  the  words  of 
the  sons  of  Ya'qub  (Qur.  12,  17).  "But  thou  dost  not  believe 
us  [art  not  a  believer  {mii'min)  in  us]."  Legally,  it  is  belief 
in  all  that  the  Prophet  has  brought.  But  there  is  a  differ- 
ence of  opinion  as  to  the  meaning  of  belief,  when  used  in  this 
way.  Some  say  that  it  means  knowledge  [ma^rifa)  and  that 
everyone  who  knows  what  the  Prophet  has  brought  is  a  be- 
liever {mu*mln).  But  this  interpretation  is  opposed  by  the 
fact  that  the  unbeliever  (Jcajir)  knows,  but  is  not  a  believer. 
Nor  does  this  interpretation  agree  with  the  common  saying, 
that  the  muqallad  is  a  believer,  although  he  does  not  know. 
And  the  right  view  as  to  the  interpretation  of  belief  is  that  it 
is  a  mental  utterance  [hadith  an-nafs)  following  conviction, 
equally  whether  it  is  conviction  on  account  of  proof,  which 
is  called  knowledge,  or  on  account  of  acceptance  on  authority 
(taqlid).  This  excludes  the  unbeliever  because  he  does  not 
possess  the  mental  utterance,  the  idea  of  which  is  that  you 
say,  "  I  am  well  pleased  with  what  the  Prophet  has  brought." 
The  mind  of  the  unbeliever  does  not  say  this.  And  it  includes 
the  muqallad  ;  for  he  possesses  the  mental  utterance  following 
conviction,  though  the  conviction  is  not  based  on  a  proof. 

And  of  that  which  must  be  believed  is  the  genealogy  of  the 
Prophet,  both  on  his  father's  side  and  on  his  mother's.  On 
his  father's  side  he  is  our  Lord,  Muhammad,  son  of  Abd 


ABU   SHUJA  351 

Allah,  son  of  Abd  al-Muttalib,  son  of  Hashim,  son  of  Abd 
Manaf,  son  of  Qusaj,  son  of  Kilab,  son  of  Murra,  son  of  Ka*b, 
son  of  Lu'ay,  or  Luway,  son  of  Ghalib,  son  of  Fihr,  son  of 
Malik,  son  of  Nadr,  son  of  Kinana,  son  of  Khuzayma,  son  of 
Mudrika,  son  of  Alyas,  son  of  Mudar,  son  of  Nizar,  son  of 
Ma'add,  son  of  Adnan.  And  the  Agreement  [ijma)  unites  upon 
this  genealogy  up  to  Adnan.  But  after  him  to  Adam  there  is  no 
sure  path  in  that  which  has  been  handed  down.  And  as  to 
his  genealogy  on  his  mother's  side,  she  is  Amina,  daughter  of 
Wahb,  son  of  Abd  Manaf,  son  of  Zuhra — this  Abd  Manaf  is 
not  the  same  as  his  ancestor  on  the  other  line — son  of  Kilab, 
who  is  already  one  of  his  ancestors.  So  the  two  lines  of  de- 
scent join  in  Kilab. 

And  it  is  necessary  also  to  know  that  he  was  of  mixed  white 
and  red  complexion,  according  to  what  some  of  them  have 
said. 

This  is  the  last  of  that  which  God  has  made  easy  by  His 
grace.  His  Blessing  be  upon  our  Lord  Muhammad  and 
upon  his  family  and  his  Companions  and  his  descendants,  so 
so  long  as  the  mindful  are  mindful  of  him  and  the  heedless 
are  heedless  of  the  thought  of  him.  And  Praise  belongeth 
unto  God,  the  Lord  of  the  Worlds. 

VII 

Analysis  of  the  Taqrib  of  Abu  Shuja  al-Ispahani* 

Book  I.     Of  Ceremonial  Purity  ( Tahara) 

1.  The  water  which  may  be  used  for  ceremonial  ablutions. 

2.  Legal  materials  for  utensils ;  what  can  be  purified  and 
what  cannot. 

3.  The  use  of  the  toothpick. 

*  See  in  bibliography,  S.  Keijzer,  Precis^  etc.  Much  help  as  to 
details  of  reUgious  ritual  and  law  will  be  found  in  Hughes's  Diction- 
ary of  Islam,  Sachau's  3fuha7nmedanisches  Recht,  Lane's  Modern 
Egyptians.,  and  commentary  to  his  translation  of  the  Arabian 
Nights,  Burton's  Pilgrimage,  and  Sell's  Faith  of  Islam. 


352  "APPENDIX  I 

4.  Description  of  the  different  stages  of  a  ceremonial  ablu- 
tion [wudu). 

5.  On  cleansing  from  excrement  and  its  ritual  generally. 

6.  The  five  things  which  require  a  fresh  wudu. 

7.  The  six  things  which  require  a  complete  ablution  of  the 
whole  body  (ghusl)  and  its  ritual. 

8.  The  seventeen  occasions  on  which  a  ghusl  is  prescribed. 

9.  When  it  is  allowable  to  wash  the  inner  shoes  (khuffs)  in- 
stead of  the  feet. 

10.  The  conditions  and  ritual  for  the  use  of  sand  (tayam- 
mum)  instead  of  water. 

11.  On  uncleannesses  (najasat)  and  how  and  how  far  they 
can  be  removed. 

12.  On   ailments   of  women ;    duration   of  pregnancy  and 
their  conditions. 

BooJc  II.     Of  Prayer 

1.  The  times  of  prayer  (salat). 

2.  Upon  whom  prayer  is  incumbent,  and 

3.  On  what  occasions. 

4.  The  antecedent  requirements  of  prayer. 

5.  The  eighteen  essential  parts  of  prayer. 

6.  The  four  things  in  which  the  prayer  of  a  woman  differs 
from  that  of  a  man. 

7.  The  eleven  things  which  nullify  prayer. 

8.  A  reckoning  of  the  occurrences  of  certain  frequently  re- 
peated elements  in  prayer. 

9.  On  omissions  in  prayer. 

10.  The  five  occasions  on  which  prayer  is  not  allowable. 

11.  The  duty  and  ritual  of  congregational  prayer. 

12.  The  prayer  of  a  traveller. 

13.  The  conditions  under  which  congregational  prayer  is  re- 
quired and  those  under  which  it  is  lawful. 

14.  The  requirements  in  congregational  prayer. 

15.  The  prayers  of  the  Two  Festivals  and  their  ritual. 

16.  The  prayers  on  occasion  of  an  eclipse. 

17.  Prayer  for  rain. 


ABU    SHUJA     '  353 

18.  Prayer  in  presence  of  the  enemy. 

19.  What  is  forbidden  of  clothing. 

20.  The  ritual  of  the  dead. 

Book  III.     Of  Rates  for  the  PooVy  etc. 

1.  The  condition  of  the  rate  {zakat)  and  of  the  rate-payer ; 
what  it  is  levied  on  and  consists  of. 
2o   On  camels. 

3.  On  cattle. 

4.  On  sheejD. 

5.  How  it  affects  partners. 

6.  On  gold  and  silver. 

7.  On  grain-stuff. 

8.  On  merchandise. 

9.  The  conditions  and  nature  of  the  rate  to  be  paid  at  the 
end  of  the  fast. 

10.  Uses  to  which  the  rate  may  be  applied. 

Book  IV.     Of  the  Fast 

1.  The   conditions  for  the  fast  {siyam);  its    description; 
what  breaks  it. 

2.  What  is  meritorious  in   fasting ;   when  and  for  whom 
it  is  forbidden  ;  how  breaking  the  fast  must  be  expiated. 

3.  The  conditions  and  nature  of  religious  retreat  (i'tikaf). 

Book  V.      Of  the  Pilgrimage 

1.  The  conditions  of  pilgrimaging  (hajj) ;  its  essentials  and 
other  elements. 

2.  The  ten  things  forbidden  on  pilgrimage. 

3.  The  five  sacrifices  of  the  pilgrimage. 

Book  VI.     Of  Barter  and  Other  Business  Transactions 

1.  Conditions  and  kinds  of  barter  {hay)  ;    what  may  be  bar- 
tered and  what  not. 

2.  Description  and  conditions  of  the  bargain  with  payment 
in  advance  {salam). 


354  APPENDIX  I 

3.  Of  i^ledging  {rdhn). 

4.  Of  those  who  are  not  to  be  permitted  to  administer  their 
own  property  [Jiajar  as-safih). 

5.  Of  bankruptcy  and  composition  and  common  rights  in  a 
highway  (sulh). 

6.  The  conditions  for  the  transfer  of  debts  and  credits  {ha- 
wala) . 

7.  Of  security  for  debts  {daman). 

8.  Of  personal  security  for  debts  (kafala). 

9.  Of  partnership  {sliirka), 

10.  Of  agency  (wakald). 

11.  Of  confession  (iqrar). 

12.  Of  loans  {Vara). 

13.  Of  illegal  seizure  and  use  of  property ;  indemnity  for  it 
and  its  damage  {ghasb). 

14.  Of  right  of  pre-emption  {shuf'a). 

15.  The  conditions  of  advancing  capital  with  participation 
in  the  profits  {qirad). 

16.  Of  the  letting  of  date-palms  and  vines  {musaqat). 

17.  Of  hiring  a  thing  out  {ijara). 

18.  Of  reward  for  return  of  a  thing  lost  (ja'ala). 

19.  That  land  may  not  be  let  for  a  fixed  amount  of  its 
produce  {mukhahara). 

20.  Of  irrigation  of  waste  lands  {iliya  al-mawat), 

21.  Of  foundations  in  mortmain  {waqf). 

22.  Of  gifts  {hiba). 

23.  Of  found  property  {luqta). 

24.  Of  foundlings  {laqit). 

25.  Of  deposits  {wadi'a). 

Book  VIL     Of  Inheritance  and  Wills 

1.  Of  legal  heirs  {warith) . 

2.  The  conditions  and  proportions  of  inheritance  {farida). 

3.  Of  legacies  {wasiya). 

Book  VIII.     Of  Marriage  and  Related  Subjects 

1.  The  conditions  of  marriage  {nikah).    What  women  a  man 
may  see  and  to  what  extent. 


ABU   SHUJA  355 

2.  The  form  of  a  legal  marriage. 

3.  The  conditions  of  asking  (khitba)  and  giving  in  marriage  ; 
whom  a  man  may  not  marry ;  conditions  for  nullity  of  mar- 
riage . 

4.  The  settlement  {mahr)  on  a  wife  by  her  husband. 

5.  On  the  wedding  feast  {walima). 

6.  On  the  equality  of  the  rights  of  the  wives  and  the  author- 
ity of  the  husband. 

7.  On  divorce  for  incompatibility  (khul). 

8.  The  forms  of  divorce  (talaq). 

9.  On  taking  a  wife  back  and  the  three-fold  divorcOo 

10.  The  oath  not  to  cohabit  (^7a). 

11.  The  temporary  separation  by  the  formula,  zihar 
Qur.  58. 

12.  The  form  of  accusation  of  adultery  and  the  defence 
(Wan). 

13.  The  period  during  which  a  previously  married  woman 
cannot  remarry  {idda). 

14.  Of  relations  with  female  slaves. 

15.  The  support  and  behavior  of  a  woman,  divorced  or  a 
widow ;  mourning. 

16.  Law  of  relationship  through  suckling  {irda). 

17.  The  support  [nafaqa)  due  to  a  wife. 

18.  The  support  due  to  children  and  parents,  slaves  and 
domestic  animals. 

19.  Of  the  custody  of  children  [hidana]. 

Book  IX.      Of  Crimes  of  Violence  to  the  Person  i^jinaya) 

1.  On  murder,  homicide  and  chance  medley. 

2.  The  lex  talionis  [qisas)  for  murder,  and 

3.  For  wounds  and  mutilations. 

4.  The  blood-wit  {diya), 

5.  Use  of  weak  evidence  in  case  of  murder. 

6.  Personal  penance  for  homicide. 

Book  X.     Of  Restrictive  Ordinances  of  God  (hadd) 

1.  Of  fornication  [zina)  of  one  who  has  been  or  is  married 
{inuJisan),  and  of  one  who  has  not  been  or  is  not  married. 


356  APPENDIX  I 

2.  Of  accusing  of  fornication. 

3.  Of  drinking  wine  or  any  intoxicating  drink. 

4.  Of  theft. 

5.  Of  highway  robbery. 

6.  Of  killing  in  defence. 

7.  Of  rebelling  against  a  just  government. 

8.  Of  apostasy. 

9.  Of  abandoning  the  usage  of  prayer. 

Booh  XL     Of  the  Holy  War  (jihad) 

1.  The  general  law  oi  jihad, 

2.  The  distribution  of  booty  taken  in  the  field  (ghanima). 

3.  The  law  of  the  tax  on  unbelievers  (fay). 

4.  The  law  of  the  poll-tax  on  unbelievers  {jizyd). 

Booh  XII.     Of  Hunting  and  the  Slaughter  of  Animals 

1.  How  an  animal  may  be  killed  in  the  chase  or  otherwise. 

2.  "What  flesh  may  be  eaten. 

3.  The  ritual  of  sacrifice  {udhiya). 

4.  The  ritual  of  sacrifice  for  a  child  (aqiqa). 

Booh  Xni.     Of  Racing  and  Shooting  with  the  Bow 

Booh  XIV.     Of  Oaths  and  Vows  (yamin,  nadhr) 

1.  What  oaths  are  allowable  and  binding ;  how  expiated. 

2.  Lawful  and  unlawful  vows. 

Booh  XV.     Of  Judgments  and  Evidence  {qada,  shahada) 

1.  Of  the  judge  (qadi)  and  court  usage. 

2.  The  division  [qasm)  of  property  held  in  common. 

3.  Of  evidence  and  oaths. 

4.  The  conditions  of  being  a  legal  witness  [adil). 

5.  The  difference  of  claims  {haqq),  on  the  part  of  God,  and 
on  the  part  of  man,  and  their  legal  treatment. 


ABU   SHUJA  857 

Book  XVI.    Of  Manumission  of  Slaves 

1.  General  conditions  of  manumission  {itq). 

2.  The  clientship  which  follows  [wala). 

3.  Of  freeing  at  death  {tadbir). 

4.  Of  the  slave  buying  his  freedom  (Jcitaba). 

6.  Of  the  slave  [umm  walad)  that  has  borne  a  child  to  her 
master  or  to  another  and  of  her  children. 


APPENDIX  II 

I.  Books  and  Articles,  General  and  Fundamental,  for 

THE  Study  of  Islam. 
11.  On  Muslim   History   and  on  Present   Condition   of 
Muslim  World. 

III.  On  Muslim  Traditions  and  Law. 

IV.  On  Muslim  Theology,  Philosophy  and  Mysticism. 


Books  and  Articles,  General  and  Fundamental,  for  the 

Study  of  Islam 

The  non-Arabist  will  gain  much  insight  into  Muslim  life 
and  thought  by  reading  such  translations  as  that  of  Ibn  Khal- 
likan  by  De  Slane  (Paris-London ;  1843-71),  the  Persian 
Tabari,  by  Zotenberg  (Paris  ;  1867-74),  Ibn  Batuta  by  De- 
fr^mery  and  Sanguinetti  (Paris ;  1853-58),  Mas'udi  by  C. 
Barbier  de  Meynard  and  Pavet  deCourteille  (Paris  ;  1861-77), 
Ibn  Khaldun's  ProUgomhies  by  De  Slane  (Paris ;  1862-68), 
ad-Dimishqi  by  Mehren  (Copenhagen ;  1874),  al-Beruni's 
Chronology  by  Sachau  (London  ;  1879). 

The  translations  and  notes  in  De  Sacy's  Chrestomathie  arabe 
(Paris  ;  1826)  can  also  be  used  to  advantage. 

Very  many  valuable  articles  will  be  found  scattered  through 
the  Zeitschrift  of  the  German  Oriental  Society  (hereafter 
Zdmg),  the  Journal  asiatique  (hereafter  Ja),  the  Journal  of  the 
Royal  Asiatic  Society  (hereafter  Jras)  and  the  Vienna  Zeit- 
schrift fiir  die  Kunde  des  Morgenlandes  (hereafter  Wz). 

358 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  359 

It  is  always  worth  while  to  consult  the  Encydopcedia  Bri- 
tannica. 

The  best  translations  of  the  Qur'an  into  English  are  those 
by  E.  H.  Palmer  (2  vols.,  Oxford;  1880)  and  J.  M.  Rodwell 
(London;  1871).  The  first  more  perfectly  represents  the 
spirit  and  tone,  and  the  second  more  exactly  the  letter.  The 
commentary  added  by  Sale  to  his  version  and  his  introduction 
are  still  useful. 

The  TJiousand  and  One  Nights  should  be  read  in  its  entirety 
in  Arabic  or  in  a  translation  by  every  student  of  Islam .  English 
translation  by  Lane  (incomplete  but  accurate  and  with  very 
valuable  commentary) ;  Burton  (last  edition  almost  complete  ; 
12  vols.,  London  :  1894).  Payne's  translation  is  complete,  as  is 
also  Burton's  privately  printed  edition ;  but,  while  exceeding- 
ly readable,  Payne  hardly  represents  the  tone  of  the  original. 
There  is  an  almost  complete  and  very  cheap  German  version 
by  Henning  published  by  Reclam,  Leipzig) ;  Mardrus'  French 
version  is  inaccurate  and  free  to  such  an  extent  as  to  make  it 
useless.  Galland's  version  is  a  work  of  genius  ;  but  it  belongs 
to  French  and  not  to  Arabic  literature. 

R.  P.  A.  Dozy  :  Essai  sur  Vhistoire  de  Vislamisme.  Leyden, 
1879.     A  readable  introduction. 

A.  MiJLLER :  Der  Islam  im  Morgen-und-Abendland.  2  vela. 
Berlin,  1885,  1887.     The  best  general  history  of  Islam. 

Stanley  Lane-Poole  :  The  Mohammedan  Dynasties  ;  chrono- 
logical and  genealogical  tables  with  historical  introductions.  West" 
minster,  1894.  An  indispensable  book  for  any  student  of  Muslim 
history. 

C.  Brockelmann  :  Geschichte  der  arahischen  Litteratur.  2 
vols.  Weimar,  1898,  1899.  Indispensable  for  names,  dates,  and 
books,  but  not  a  history  in  any  true  sense. 

T.  B.  Hughes  :  A  Dictionary  of  Islam.  London,  1896.  Very 
full  of  information,  but  to  be  used  with  caution.  Based  on  Persian 
sources  largely. 

E.  W.  Lane  :  An  Account  of  the  Manners  and  Customs  of  the 
Modern  Egyptians.  First  edition,  London,  1836;  third,  1842. 
Many  others.     Indispensable. 


360  APPENDIX   II 

C.  M.  Doughty  .  Travels  in  Arabia  Deserta  2  vols.  Cam- 
bridge, 1888.  By  far  the  best  book  on  nomad  life  in  Arabia.  Gives 
the  fullest  and  clearest  idea  of  the  nature  and  workings  of  the  Arab 
mind. 

J.  L.  BuRCKHARDT  :  Notcs  on  the  Bedouins  and  Wahabys.  2 
vols.     London,  1831. 

J.  L.  BuRCKHARDT  :   Travels  in  Arabia.     2  vols.     London,  1829. 

R.  F.  Burton  :  Personal  Narrative  of  a  Pilgrimage  to  al-Ma- 
dinah  and  Meccah.  2  vols.  Last  edition,  London,  1898.  On 
the  Hajj  and  Muslim  life,  thought  and  studies  generally  in  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Readable  and  accurate  to  a 
degree. 

C.  Snouck  Hurgronje  :  Mekka.  2  vols,  and  portfolio  of  plates. 
Haag,  1888,  1889.  Is  somewhat  dull  beside  Burton,  but  very  full 
and  accurate. 

W.  Robertson  Smith  :  Lectures  07i  the  Religion  of  the  Semites. 
First  Series.  New  edition,  London,  1894.  Kinship  and  Mar- 
riage in  Early  Arabia.     Cambridge,  1885. 

Ignaz  Goldziher  :  Muhammedanische  Studien.  I,  Halle  a.  S., 
1889.  II,  1890.  Epoch-marking  books;  as  are  all  Goldziher's 
contributions  to  the  history  of  Muslim  civilization. 

Alfred  von  Kremer  :  Geschichte  der  herrschenden  Ideen  des 
Islams.     Leipzig,  1868. 

Alfred  von  Kremer  :  Cultur geschichte  des  Orients  unter  den 
Chalifen.  2  vols.  Wien,  1875-77.  Culturgeschichtliche  Streif- 
zilge.     Leipzig,  1873. 

Edward  G.  Browne  :  A  Year  Among  the  Persians.  London, 
1893.  A  most  valuable  account  of  modern  Persian  life,  philosophy, 
and  theology,  and  especially  of  Sufiism  and  Babism. 

Edward  G.  Browne  :  A  Literary  History  of  Persia.  New 
York,  1902.  Really  political  and  religious  prolegomena  to  such  a 
history. 

G.  A.  Herklots  :  Qanoon-e- Islam.)  or  the  Customs  of  the 
Moosulmans  of  India.     London,  1832. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  361 


II 

On   Muslim    History  and  on    Present    Condition  of   Muslim 

World 

August  Muller  :  Die  Beherrscher  der  Glduhigen.  Berlin,  1882. 
A  very  brightly  written  sketch  based  on  thorough  knowledge. 

GusTAV  Weil  :  Geschichte  der  Chalifen.  3  vols.  Mannheim, 
1846-1851. 

Sir  William  Muir  :  The  Caliphate^  its  Rise^  Decline  and  Fall. 
London,  1891. 

Theodor  Noldeke  :  Zur  tendentiosen  Gestaltung  der  Urge- 
schichte  des  Islams.  ZDMG,  lii,  pp.  16  ff.  All  Noldeke's  papers 
on  the  early  history  of  Islam  are  worthy  of  the  most  careful  study. 

G.  VON  Vloten  :  Zur  Ahhasiden  Geschichte.  ZDMG,  lii,  pp.  213 
ff.     On  the  early  Abbasids. 

R.  E.  BRtjNNOw  :  De  Charidschiten  unter  den  ersten  Omayyaden. 
Leyden,  1884. 

Eduard  Sachau  :  Uber  eine  Arabische  Chronik  aus  Zanzibar. 
Mitth.  a.d.  Sem.  1  Orient.   Sprachen.     Berlin,  1898.     On  Ibadites. 

George  Percy  Badger  :  History  of  the  Imams  and  Seyyids 
of  Oman,  by  Salil-ibn-Razik.  London  :  Hakluyt  Society,  1871. 
Valuable  for  Ibadite  history,  law  and  theology. 

M.  J.  DE  GoEjE  :  Memoire  sur  les  Carmathes  du  Bahrain  et  les 
Fatimides.     Leyden,  1886. 

John  Nicholson  :  An  Account  of  the  Establishment  of  the  Fate- 
mite  Dynasty  in  Africa.     Tiibingen  and  Bristol,  1840. 

Quatremere  :  Memoires  historiques sur  la  dynastie  des  Khalifes 
Fatimites.     J  A,  3,  ii. 

Sylvestre  de  Sacy  :  Expose  de  la  religion  des  Druzes  et  la  vie 
du  Khalife  Ilakem-biamr-allah.     2  vols.     Paris,  1838. 

F.  WiJSTENFELD  :  Gcschichte  der  Fatimiden- Khali  fen.  Gottin- 
gen,     1881. 

Stanley  Lane-Poole  :  A  History  of  Egypt  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
New  York,  1901,  For  the  origin  and  founding  of  the  Fatimid 
Dynasty,  the  Khalifa  al-Hakim,  etc. 

H.  L.  Fleischer  :  Briefwechsel  zwischen  den  Anfiihrern  der 
Wahhabiten  und  dem  Pasha  von  Damaskus.  Kleinere  Schriften^ 
iii,  pp.  341  ff.     First  published  in  ZDMG  for  year  1857. 


362  APPENDIX   II 

E.  Rehatsek  :  The  History  of  the  Wahhabys  in  Arabia  and  m 
India.  Journal  of  Asiatic  Society  of  Bengal.  No.  xxxviii  (read 
January,  1880). 

Turkey  in  Europe^  by  "  Odysseus."  London,  1900.  The  present 
situation,  with  its  historical  antecedents  in  European  Turkey  and  the 
Balkans  generally. 

H.  O.  DwiGHT :  Constantinople  and  its  Problems.  New  York, 
1901. 

A.  S.  White  :  The  Expansion  of  Egypt.  London,  1899.  The 
present  situation  in  Egypt  and  its  historical  antecedents. 

W.  W.  Hunter  :   Our  Indian  Mussulmans.     London,  1871. 

Sir  Lewis  Pelly  :  The  Miracle  Play  of  Hasan  and  Husain. 
London,  1879. 

W.  S.  Blunt  :  The  Future  of  Islam.     London,  1880. 

Ill 

On  Muslim  Traditions  and  Law 

The  MishTcat^  translated  by  Matthews.  Calcutta,  1809.  (A  col- 
lection of  traditions.) 

The  Hidaya^  translated  by  C.  Hamilton.  II  edition.  London, 
1870. 

N.  B.  E.  Baillie  :  A  Digest  of  Muhammadan  Law.  Haniji 
Code.     London,  1865. 

The  same.  Imameea  Code.  London,  1869.  The  first  volume 
deals  with  Sunnite,  the  second  with  Shi'ite  law. 

S.  Keijzer  :  Precis  de  Juo'isprudence  3Iusulmane  selon  le  rite 
Chafeite  par  Abu  Chodja  ;  texte  arabe  avec  traduction  et  annota- 
tions.    Leyden,  1859.     To  be  used  with  caution. 

Eduard  Sachau  :  Muhammadanisches  Recht  nach  Schafiitischer 
Lehre.  Stuttgart  &  Berlin,  1897.  Based  largely  on  al-Bajuri's 
commentary  to  Abu  Shuja  :  covers  rather  less  than  half  the  ma- 
terial of  a  corpus  of  canon  law  and  is  the  best  general  introduc- 
tion to  the  subject. 

Ignaz  Goldziher  :  Die  Zahiriten^  ihr  Lehrsystem  und  ihre 
Oeschichte.     Leipzig,  1884. 

Ignaz  Goldziher  :  Neue  3faterialien  zur  Litteratur  des  Ueber- 
lieferungswesen  bei  den  Muhammedanern.  ZDMG,  I,  pp.  465  ff. 
Deals  with  Musnad  of  Ahmad  ibn  Hanbal. 


BIBLIOGEAPIIY  363 

Ignaz  Goldziher  :  Zur  Litteratur  des  Ichtilaf  al-madhahxb. 
ZDMG,  xxxA'iii,  pp.  669  ff.     Contains  a  notice  of  ash-Sha'rani. 

Ignaz  Goldziher  ;  Uher  eine  Formel  in  der  judischen  Respon- 
sen-litteratur.     ZDMG,  liii,  pp.  645  fF.     On  fativas  and  ijtihad. 

Ignaz  Goldziher  :  Das  Princip  des  Istishab  in  muham.  Gesetz- 
wissenschaft.     WZ,  i,  pp.  228  ff. 

Eduard  Sachau  :  Ifuhammedanisches  Erhrecht  nach  der  Lehre 
der  Ihaditischen  Araber  von  Zanzibar  und  Ostafrika.  Sitzungs- 
berichte  derkon.  preuss.  Akad.,  1894. 

Eduard  Sachau  :  Zur  dltesten  Geschichte  des  muhammedanischen 
Rechts.     Wien.  Akad.,  1870. 

Snouck  Hurgronje  :  Le  droit  musulman.  Revue  de  I'histoire 
des  religions,  xxxvii,  pp.  1  ff,  and  174  ff. 

Snouck  Hurgronje  :  Muhammedanisches  Recht  nach  schafiit' 
ischer  Lehre  von  Eduard  Sachau;  Anzeige^  ZDMG,  liii,  pp.  125  ff. 

S.  K.  Keun  de  Hoogerwoerd  :  Studien  zur  Einfuhrung  in  das 
Recht  des  Islam.  Erlangen,  1901.  Contains  introduction  and  part 
of  section  on  law  of  marriage.  Gives  a  good  but  miscellaneous 
bibliography  and  is  written  from  a  Persian  point  of  view  ;  trans- 
literation is  peculiarly  eccentric  and  Arabic  scholarship  is  unsound. 

J.  Wellhausen  :  3Iedina  vor  dem  Islam.  Muhammad^ s  Gemein- 
deordnung  von  Mediyia.  In  "  Skizzen  und  Vorarbeiten,"  Viertes 
Heft.     Berlin,  1889. 

HuART  :  Les  Zindiqs  en  droit  musulman.  Eleventh  Congress 
of  Orientalists,  part  iii,  pp.  69  ff. 

D.  B.  Macdonald  :  The  Emancipation  of  Slaves  under  Muslim, 
Law.     American  Monthly  Review  of  Reviews,  March,  1900. 

IV 

On  Muslim  Theology,  Philosophy  and  Mysticism 

Theodor  Haarbrijcker  :  Asch-Schahrastani^s  Religionspar- 
teien  und  PhilosophenscJiulen  ubersetzt  und  erkldrt.  2  vols.  Halle, 
1850-51.  The  Arabic  text,  without  which  Haarbriicker's  German  is 
sometimes  hardly  intelligible,  was  published  by  Cureton,  London, 
1846. 

T.  J.  DE  Boer  :  Geschichte  der  Philosophie  im  Islam,.  Stuttgart, 
1901.  Unsatisfactory  but  the  best  that  there  is.  It  is  only  a  sketch 
and  takes  hardly  sufficient  account  of  theology  and  mysticism. 


364  APPENDIX   II 

Stanley  Lane-Poole  :  Studies  in  a  Mosque.  II  edition.  Lon- 
don, 1893.     Miscellaneous  essays,  lightly  written  but  trustworthy. 

Krehl  :  Beitrdge  zur  Characteristik  der  Lehre  vom  Glauben  in 
Islam.     Leipzig,  1877. 

G.  VON  Vloten  :  Les  Ilachwia  et  Nahita.  Eleventh  Congress  of 
Orientalists,  part  iii,  pp.  99  ff.     On  early  religious  sects. 

G.  von  Vloten  :  Irdja.  ZDMG,  xiv,  pp.  181  ff.  On  the  Mur- 
ji'ites.  Xi.^     ^-  '^' 

Edltard  Sachau  :  JJher  de  religiosen  Anschauungen  der  ihadit- 
ischen  Muhammedaner  in  Oman  und  Ostafrica.  Mitth.  a.  d.  Sem. 
f.  Orient.  Sprachen.     Berlin,  1899. 

H.  Steiner  :  Die  Mu''taziliten  oder  die  FreidenJcer  im  Islam. 
Leipzig,  1865. 

WiLHELM  Spitta  :  Zur  Geschichte  Abu  I- Hasan  al-Ash'-arVs. 
Leipzig,  1876,  The  best  as  yet  on  al-Ash'ari,  but  to  be  used  with 
caution,  especially  in  the  translations  of  theological  texts. 

Martin  Schreiner  :  Zur  Geschichte  des  Ash'-aritenthums .  In 
Actes  du  huitieme  Congress  International  des  Orientalistes,  I,  i, 
pp.  77  fe.     Leiden,  1891. 

M.  A.  F.  Mehren  :  Expose  de  la  oSforme  de  V Islamisme  com- 
mencee  au  troisieme  siecle  de  VHegire  par  Ahou-l-Hasan  AH  el- 
Ash^ari  et  continuee  par  sonecole.  Third  International  Congress  of 
Orientalists,  vol.  ii. 

G.  FLiJGEL :  Al-Kindi  genannt  ''''der  Philosoph  der  Araher." 
Ein  Vorhild  seiner  Zeit  und  seines  Volkes.     Leipzig,  1857. 

Sir  William  Muir  :  The  Apology  of  al-Kindy,  written  at  the 
court  of  al-Mdmun.     London,  1882. 

E,  Sell  :  The  Faith  of  Islam.  London,  1896.  II  edittion.  A 
valuable  book,  but  from  the  point  of  view  of  an  Indian  missionary. 
Hence  the  tone  is  polemic  and  the  technicalities  are  Persian  rather 
than  Arabic. 

Walter  M.  Patten  :  Ahmad  ibn  Hanbal  and  the  Mihna. 
Leyden,  1897.  There  is  a  valuable  review  by  Goldziher  in  ZDMG. 
Iii,  pp.  155  ff.  It  traces  connection  of  Hanbalites  with  Ibn 
Taymiya  and  Wahhabites. 

Heinrich  Ritter  :  Ueber  unsere  Kenntniss  der  Arabischen  Fhil- 
osophie.     Gottingen,  1844. 

Friedrich  Dieterici  :  Alfarabi's  philosophische  Abhandlungen 
herausgegeben.  Leiden,  1890.  Aus  dem  arabischen  iibersetzt. 
Leiden,  1892. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  365 

Al-Farabi  :  Der  Musterstaat.  Herausgegehen  und  Ubersetzt 
von  Frdr.  Dieterici.     Leiden,  1900. 

G.  Flugel  :  Ueber  Inhalt  und  Verfasser  der  arabisehen  Encyclo- 
pddie  der  Ikhwan  as-Safa.  ZDMG,  xiii,  pp.  1  ff.  See,  too,  an 
excellent  article  by  August  Miiller  in  Ersch  und  Gruber^  ii,  42,  pp. 
272  ff.,  and  Stanley  Lane-Poole  in  his  Studies  in  a  Mosque. 

Friedrich  Dieterici  :  Die  Philosophic  der  Araber  im  X. 
Jahrhundert  n.  Chr.  aus  der  Schriften  der  lauteren  Briider  her- 
ausgegeben.     Berlin  and  Leipzig,  1861-1879. 

Ignaz  Goldziher  :  3Iate7'ialien  zur  Entwickelungs-geschichte  des 
Sufismus.     WZ,  xiii,  pp.  35  ff. 

Theodor  Noldeke  :  Sufi.  ZDMG,  xlviii,  pp.  45  fif.  On  the 
derivation  and  early  usage  of  the  name  Sufi. 

Adelbert  Merx  :  Idee  und  Grundlinien  einer  allgemeinen 
Geschichte  der  Mystik.     Heidelberg,  1893. 

John  P.  Brown  :  The  Derwishes  or  Oriental  Spiritualism. 
London,  1868.  A  valuable  but  uncritical  description  of  modern 
Turkish  and  Persian  Darwiahes. 

Sir  James  Redhouse  :  The  Mesnevi  ofJelal  eddin  ar-rumi  trans- 
lated into  English.  Book  I.  London,  1881.  See,  too,  a  transla- 
tion by  Whinfield,  London,  1887,  and  an  edition  of  selected  ghazels 
from  the  Diwan  with  translation  and  valuable  introduction  by  R.  A. 
Nicholson,  Cambridge  University  Press,  1898. 

E.  J.  W.  GiBB  :  A  History  of  Ottoman  Poetry .  Vol.  i,  London, 
1900.  A  valuable  statement  of  the  later  Persian  and  Turkish 
mysticism  and  metaphysic  on  pp.  13-70. 

E.  H.  Palmer  :   Oriejital  Mysticism.     Cambridge,  1867. 

Carra  de  Vaux  :  Avicenne.  Paris,  1900.  Contains  an  intro- 
ductory sketch  of  philosophy  and  theology  up  to  the  time  of  Ibn 
Sina.     Algazali.     Paris,  1902.     A  continuation  of  the  first 

A.  VON  Kremer  :  Uber  die  philosophischen  Gedichte  des  Abul 
Ala  Ma'arry.     Wien,  1888. 

A.  VON  Kremer  :  Gedichte  des  Abu-l-Ala  Ma''arri.  ZDMG, 
xxix,  304;  xxx,  40;  xxxi,  pp.  471  ff.  ;  xxxviii,  499  ff. 

Abu-l-Ala  al-Ma'arri  :  Letters  Arabic  and  English^  nrnthnotes.^ 
etc.^  edited  by  D.  S.  Margoliouth.  Oxford,  1898.  See,  too,  papers 
by  R.  A.  Nicholson  in  JRAS,  October,  1900,  ff. ;  and  by  Mar- 
goliouth, for  April,  1902. 

E.  Fitzgerald  :  The  Ruba''iyat  of  Omar  Khayyam.  With  a 
commentary  by  H.  M.  Batson  and  a  biographical  Introduction  by 


o/» 


66  APPENDIX   II 

E.  D.  Ross.  New  York,  1900.  The  biography  by  Ross  is  the  only 
at  all  adequate  treatment  of  the  life  and  times  of  Umar  which  yet 
exists.  Of  the  Ruba'iyat  themselves  there  are  several  adequate 
translations,  e.g.  by  Whinfield,  Payne  and  Mrs.  Cadell. 

Martin  Schreiner  :  Zuo'  Geschichte  der  Polemxk  zwischen  Juden 
und  Muhammedanern.  ZDMG,  xlii,  pp.  591  ff.  Deals  with  Ibn 
Hazm  and  Fakhr  ad-Din  ar-Razi. 

Martin  Schreiner  :  Beitrdge  zur  Geschichte  der  theologischen 
Bewegungen  in  Islam.  ZDMG,  Hi,  pp  463  ff.  ;  513  ff.  ;  liii,  pp. 
51  ff.  A  most  valuable  collection  of  materials  with  considerable 
gaps  and  imperfect  digestion. 

D.  B.  Macdonald  :  The  Life  of  al-Ghazzali.  In  the  Journal  of 
the  American  Oriental  Society,  vol.  xx,  pp.  71-182. 

D.  B.  Macdonald  :  Emotional  Religion  in  Islam  as  affected  by 
Music  and  Singing.  Being  a  translation  of  a  book  of  the  Ihya  of 
al-Ghazzali.  In  JRAS  for  April  and  October,  1901,  and  January, 
1902. 

Miguel  Asin  Palacios  :  Algazel.,  dogmatica,  morale  ascetica. 
Zaragoza,  1901. 

C.  Barrier  de  Meynard  :  Traduction  nouvelle  du  Traite  de 
Ghazzali,  intitule  Le  Preservatif  de  I'Erreur.  In  JA,  vii,  9,  pp. 
5  ff. 

T.  J.  de  Boer  :  Die  Widerspriiche  der  Philosophie  nach  al- 
Ghazzali  und  ihr  Ausgleich  durch  Ibn  Roshd.     Strassburg,  1894. 

A  translation  of  al-Ghazzali's  Tahafut  has  been  begun  by  Carra 
de  Vaux  in  Le  Museon,  xxviii,  p.  143  (June,  1899). 

Ignaz  Goldziher  :  Materialien  zur  Kenntniss  der  Almohaden- 
hewegung  in  Nordafrika.     ZDMG,  xli,  pp.  30  ff. 

Ignaz  Goldziher  :  Die  Bekenntnissformeln  der  Almohaden. 
ZDMG,  xliv,  pp.  168  ff. 

Robert  Flint  :  Historical  Philosophy  in  France  and  French 
Belgium  and  Switzerland.  New  York,  1894.  Contains  an  excel- 
lent estimate  of  Ibn  Khaldun  as  a  philosophical  historian. 

A.  VON  Kremer  :  Ibn  Chaldun  und  seine  Culturgeschichte  der 
islamischen  Reiche.     Wien,  1879. 

Ernest  Renan  :  Averroes  et  V Arerroisme.  Ill  edition.  Paris, 
1861.  Reviewed  by  Dozy  in  JA,  5,  ii,  pp.  93  ff.  This  review  con- 
tains a  curious  description  of  a  Parliament  of  Religions  at  Baghdad 
about  A.D.  1000. 

Philosophie  und  Theologie  von  Averroes.     Aus  dem  Arabischen 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  367 

iibersetzt  von  M.  J.  Miiller.     Miinchen,  1875.     The  Arabic  text  was 
published  by  Miiller  in  1859. 

Leon  Gauthier  :  Ihn  Thofail-Hayy  hen  Yaqdhan^  roman  philo- 
sophique.  Texte  arabe  .  .  .  et  traduction  frangaise.  Alger, 
1900.  There  is  an  earlier  edition  of  Ibn  Tufayl's  romance  by  the 
younger  Pocock  with  a  Latin  version.     Oxford,  1671. 

M.  A.  F.  Mehren  :  Correspondance  du  Philosophe  Sovfi  Ihn 
SahHn  Ahd  oul-Haqq  avec  lEmpereur  Frederic  II.  de  Hohen- 
staufen.     In  JA,  vii,  14,  pp.  341  ft. 

S.  GuYARD :  Ahd  ar-Razzaq  et  son  traite  de  la  Predestination 
et  du  lihre  a7-hitre.     In  JA,  vii,  1,  pp.  125  fif. 

A.  DE  Kremer  :  Notice  sur  ShaWany.     In  JA,  vi,  11,  pp.  253  ff. 

G.  Flugel  :  Scha'-rani  und  sein  Werk  uher  die  muhammadan- 
ische  Glavhenslehre.     ZDMG,  xx,    p.  1  ff. 

Ignaz  Goldziher  :  Beitrdge  zur  Litteraturgeschichte  der  Shi^a. 
Wien,  1874. 

James  L.  Merrick  :  The  Life  and  Religion  of  Mohammed,  as 
contained  in  the  Sheeah  Traditions  of  the  Hyat-ul-Kulooh.  Bos- 
ton, 1850. 

J.  B.  RiJLiNG :  Beitrdge  zur  Eschatologie  des  Islam.  Leipzig, 
1895. 

L.  Gauthier  :  Ad-dour7'a  al-fakhira ;  la  perle  precieuse  de  Gha- 
zali.  Geneve,  1878.  In  Arabic  and  French;  a  valuable  account 
of  Muslim  eschatology. 

M.  Wolff  :  Muhammedanische  Eschatologie.  Leipzig,  1872. 
In  Arabic  and  German  ;  an  account  of  ^oj^u/ar  Muslim  eschatology. 

Defont  et  Cappolani  :  Les  Confreries  religieuses  Musulmanes. 
Alger,  1897. 

Snouck  Hdrgronje  :  Les  Confreries  religieuses.,  la  Mecque  et  le 
Panislamisme,  inRcA^uede  I'histoire  des  religions,  xliv,  pp.  262  ff. 


APPENDIX   III 

For  typographical  reasons  the  smooth  guttural  Ha,  the  palatals  Sad,  Dad, 
Ta,  Za,  and  the  long  vowels  are  indicated  by  italic.  The  same  system  is  fol- 
lowed in  the  index. 

CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLE 


A.H. 
11  M.d.  ;  Ahu  Bakr  Kh. 

13  'Umar  Kh. 

14  Battle  of  al-Qadisiya  ;   fall  of 

Jerusalem ;    al-Basra  found- 
ed ;  fall  of  Damascus. 
17  Al-K?*fa  founded  ;    Syria  and 
Mesopotamia  conquered. 

20  Conquest  of  Egypt. 

21  Battle  of    Nahawand ;  Persia 

conquered. 
23  'UthmanKh. 
30  Final  redaction  of  the  Qur'an. 
3.5  'All  Kh. 
3()  Battle  of  Carmel. 

40  'All  d. 

41  Mu'awiyal.  Kh. ;  Herat. 
49  Al-i/asan  d. 

56  Samarqand, 

60  Schism  of  Ibatfites  from  Khari- 

jites. 

61  Karbala  &  d.  of  al-^usayn. 

73  Storm  of  Mecca  &  d.  of  'Abd 

Allah  b.  az-Zubayr. 

74  Carthage. 

80  Ma 'bad  executed. 

81  M.  b.  al-//anafiya  d. 
93  Toledo. 

99-101  'Umar  II.  Kh. 
110  i/asan  al-Basri  d. 
114  Charles  the  Hammer  at  Tours 
(A.D.  732). 


A.H. 

121  Zayd  b.  Zayn  al-'^bidin  d. 
124  Az-Zuhri  d. 
127-132  Marwan  II.  Kh. 

130  Jahm  b.  ^'af  wan  killed  ? 

131  Wa.sil  b.  'A^a  d. 

132  Fall  of  Umayyads  ;  as-SaffaA 

first  'Abbasid  Kh. 

134  First  Ibarfite  Imam. 

135  Rabi'  a  d. 
136-158  Al-Man.swr  Kh. 
138-422  Umayyads  of  Cordova. 
140  Ibn  al-Muqaffa'  killed. 

143  Halley's  comet. 

144  'Amr  b.  'Ubayd  d.  ? 

145  Baghdad  founded  ;  ' A'isha  d. 

of  Ja'  far  as-6^adiq  d. 

147  Homage  to  al-Mahd«  as  suc- 

cessor in  Kh. 

148  Ja'far  as-iS'adiq  d. 

150  Abw  Ifanifa,  d. ;  trace  of  Suii 
monastery  in  Damascus. 

157  Al-Awza'i  d. 

158-169  Al-Mahdi  Kh.  ;  John  of 
Damascus  d.? 

161  Sufyan  ath-Thawri  d.  ;  Ibra- 
him b.  Adham  d. 

165  Da^ud  h.  Nusayr  d. 

167  Bashshar  b.  Burd  killed. 

170-193  Har?^n  ar-Rashid  Kh. 

172-375  Idrisids. 

179  Malik  b.  Anas  d. 


368 


A.H.  182-408 


369 


A.H. 
183  The  Qadl  Ahu  Y«suf  d. 
187  Fall  of   Barmecides  ;    al-Fu- 

cla.yl  b.  ^lyad  d. 
189  M.  b.  al-JTasan  d. 
198-218  Al-Ma'm?m  Kh. 
200  Ma'rwf  of  al-Karkh  d.  ;  trace 

of  Suit  monastery  inKhura- 

san. 
204  Ash-Sh«fi'i  d. 
208  Ahu   'Ubayda  d.  ;   the  Lady 

Naf  isa  d. 

211  Theodorus  Abucara  d. 

212  Decree    that  the    Qur'an   is 

created. 

213  Thumama  b.  Ashras  d. 

215  Ahu  Sulayman  of  Damascus 

d.;  2nd  decree. 
218-234  The  Mi/ma  ;  Al-Mu'ta^im 

Kh. 
220  Ma'mar  b.  'Abbad. 
223  Fatiraa,  of  Naysabwr  d. 

226  Ahu  Hudhayl  M.  al- AUaf  d. 

227  Bishr  al-Hati  d.  ;  al-Wathiq 

Kh. 
231  An-Na22am  d. 

233  Al-Mutawakkil  Kh. 

234  Decree    that    Qur'an   is   un- 

created ;  Scotus  Erigena 
transl.  pseudo-Dionysius, 
A.D.  8.50. 

240  Ibn  Abi  Duwad  d. 

241  A^mad  b.  //anbal  d. 
243  Al-i/«rith  al-Mu/msibi  d. 
245  Dhw-n-Nwn   d.  ;    al-Karabisi 

d. 
250-316  Alids  of  Zaydite  branch 
in  north  Persia. 

255  Al-JaAi^  d. 

256  Ibn  Karram  d. 

257  Al-Bukhari  d. ;  Sari  as-Saqaii 

d. 
260  Al-Kindi  d.?  M.  b.  al-^asan 
al-Muntazar  vanished. 


A.H. 

261  Muslim  d,  ;    Abw  Yazid  al- 

Bisiami  d. 
270  Da'wd  az-Zahiri  d. 
273  Ibn  Maja  d. 
275  Ab?*  Da'?/d  as-Sijistani  d. 
277  Qarma^ians  hold  fortress  in 

Arab  'Iraq. 

279  At-Tirmidhi  d. 

280  Zaydite  Imams   at  as-Sa'da 

and  San 'a. 
289  'Ubayd    Allah    al-Mahdi    in 

North  Africa. 
295-320  Al-Muqtadir       'Abbasid 

Kh. 
297  First  Faiimid  Kh. ;  al-Junayd 

d. 
300  Return  of  al- Ash 'art. 
303  An-Nasa'i  d. ;  Al-Jubba'i  d. 
309  A\-Hal\a]  executed. 
317  Umayyads  of   Cordova  take 

title  of  Commander  of  the 

Faithful  ;     Qarma^ians    in 

Mecca. 
320-447  Buwayhids  ;     al-Ash'ari 

d.? 
322  Ibn  ash-Shalmaghani. 
331  At-Tahawi  d. 

333  Al-Matandi  d. 
333-356  Sayf  ad-Dawla. 

334  Buwayhids  in  Baghdad ;  ash- 

Shibli  d. 
339  Return    of    Black  Stone  by 

Qarma^ians  ;  al-Farabi  d. 
356  Fa^imids     conquer     Egypt ; 

Cairo  founded. 
360  Ikhwan  as-^Safa  fl. 
362  Ibn  Hani  d. 
381-422  Al-Qadir  Kh. 
386  Ahu  TaMh  al-Makki  d. 
388^21  Ma7im?^d  of  Ghazna. 
403  Al-Baqilani  d. 
408  Persecution    of    Mu'tazilites 

under  al-Qadir. 


370 


APPENDIX  III 


A.H. 
411  Al-fiakim  Fa^imid  Kh.  van- 
ished ;  Firdawsi  d. 
438  Ibn  Sina  d. 
434  Ahu  Dharr  d. 
440  Al-Beitmi  d. 
447  Tughril  Beg,  the  Saljuq,  in 
Baghdad. 

449  Ahu-l-'A\a  al-Ma'arri  d. 

450  Persecution  of  Ash'arites. 

455  Alp-Arslan  ;   Ni^am  al-Mulk 

Wazir  ;  end  of  persecution 
of  Ash'arites. 

456  Ibn  i/azm  az-Zahivi  d. 
465  Al-Qushayri  d. 

478  Imam  al-//aramayn  d. 

481  Nasir  b.  Khusraw  d. 

483  ^asan    b.    a^-Ssibbah   seizes 

Alamwt. 
485  Ni^am  al-Mulk  assass. 
488  Al-Ghazzali  leaves  Baghdad. 
505  Al-Ghazzali  d. 

515  'Umar  al-Khayyam  d. 

516  Al-Baghawi  d. 

524  Ibn  Twmart  al-Mahdi  d. 
524-558  'Abd  al-Mu'min. 
524-667  The  Muwa/iMds. 
533  AbM  Bakr  b.  Bajja  d. 

537  Ahu  Ba.is  an-Nasaf  i  d. 

538  Az-Zamakhshari  d. 

540  Yehuda  Hale vid.=  A.  D.  1145. 
546  Ah2i  Bakr  b.  al-'Arabi  d. 
548  Ash-Shahrastani  d. 
558  'Abd    al-Mu'min     the    Mu- 

waAAid  d. 
558  'Adi  al-Hakkari  d. 
558-580  Ab?i     Ya'qtib    the   Mu- 

waMid. 
561  'Abd      al-Qadir      al-Jilani, 

founder    of    order    of  dar- 

wishes,  d. 
567  Conquest  of  Egypt  by  Saladin 

and  end  of  Fa?;imids. 
676  Order  of  Rif a'ites  founded. 


A.H. 

580  Ahu  Ya'qwb  d. 

580-596  Abw  Ywsuf  al-Man«wr. 

581  Ibn  Tuf ayl  d. 

587  As-Suhrawardi  executed. 

589  Saladin  d. 

590  Ab?<Shuja'd.? 

595  Ibn  Rushd  d.;  Ab?^  Yttsuf 
al-Man.s?<r  the  MuwaA/iid  d. 

601  Maimonides  d.=A.D.  1204. 

606  Fakhr  ad-Din  ar-Razi  d. 

620  AbM-1-i/ajjaj  b.  T  mains  d. ; 
Fakhr  ad-Din  b.  'Asakir 
d. ;  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  d. 
=A.D.  1226. 

625-941  ifafsids  at  Tunis. 

630-640  Ar-Rashid  the  MuwaA- 
hid. 

632  'Umar  b.  al-Farid. 

638  Ibn  'Arabi  d. 

648  Frederick  11.  d.=A.D.  1250. 

654  End  of  Assassins  by  Mon- 
gols ;  Ash-Shadhili,  found- 
er of  order  of  darwishes,  d. 

667  Ibn  Sab 'in  d.;  end  of  Muwa/i- 
Aids. 

672  Jalal  ad-Din  ar-Rwmi  d. 

675  AAmad  al-Badawi,  founder  of 
order  of  darwishes,  d. 

681  Ibn  Khallikan  d. 

685  Al-Bay<?awi  d. 

693,698-708,  709-741  MuAammad 
An-Nasir,  Mamlwk  Sultan, 
reg. 

719  An-Nasr  al-Manbiji  d.? 

724  Ibn  Rushd  is  still  studied  at 
Almeria. 

728  IbnTaymiyad.;  MeisterEck- 
hart  d.=A.D.  1328. 

730  'Abd  ar-Razzaq  d. 

756  Al-'Jjid.;  Heinrich  Suso  d. 

791  At-Taftazani  d.;  an-Naqsh- 
bandi,  fouiider  of  order  of 
darwishes,  d. 


A.H.  808-1275 


371 


A.H. 

808  Ibn  Khaldwn  d. 

857  Capture  of  Constantinople 
by  Ottomans  and  office  of 
Shaykh  al-Islam  created= 
A.D.  1453.  Thomas  a  Kem- 
pisd.=A.D.  1471. 

895  M.  b.  Ywsuf  as-Sauwsi  d. 

907  Accession  of  /S'afawids. 

922  Conquest  of  Egypt  by  Otto- 
man Turks. 

945  Death  of  al-Mutawakkil,  last 
'Abbasid. 

951  Beginning  of  Sharifs  of  Mo- 
rocco. 


A.H. 

973  Ash-Sha'rani  d. 

1201  'Abd  al-Wahhab  d.==A.D. 
1787. 

1205  Sayyid  Murta(?«  d.;  al-Fu- 
dali  fl.  circ.  1220. 

1252  Foundation  of  Brotherhood 
of  as-Sanwsi=A.D.  1837. 

1260  Ibrahim  al-Baj?/ri  d.  ;  De- 
cree of  Porte  that  apostate 
Muslims  should  not  be  put 
to  death. 

1275  Death  of  founder  of  Broth- 
erhood of  as-Sanwsi=A.  D. 
1859. 


INDEX  OF    NAMES    AND  AKABIC   WOKDS 


Abadi,  300 

A1-' Abbas,  10,  32 

'Abbasids,  10,  32,  34,  39,  45,  50, 

51,  53,  54,  56,  57,  91,  92-94,  97, 

98,  132-135,  153,  154,  167,  169, 

174 
'Abd,  294 
'Abd  Allah,  father  of  Mu^.aiiimad, 

350,  f. 
'Abd  Allah  ibn  az-Zubayr,  23,  25 
*Abd  Allah  ibn  Maymwn,  40,  42-44 
'Abd  Allah  ibn  'Umar,  298 
*Abd  al-Mu'min,  248,  252 
'Abdal-Mu«alib,  351 
'Abd  al-Qadir  al-Jilani,  267 
*Abd  ar-RaAman,   the   Umayyad, 

33 
'Abd  ar-Razzaq,  271,  f. 
'^bid,  173,  174 
'^bida,  174 
Abkam,  340 
Abraham,   also  Ibrahim,  42,  226, 

345 
Abw  '  Abd  Allah  ibn  Karram ;  see 

Ibn  Karram 
Ab?i-l-'Ala  al-Ma'arri,  199 
Abi*  Bakr,  1st  Kh.,  13-16,  23,  24, 

36,  56,  71,   165,  200,  250,  268, 

297,  307,  313,  346 
Abw  Da'wd  as-Siji8tan^,  81 
Ahu  Dharr,  207 
Abw-1-^ajjaj  ibn  TumlMs,  260 
Ahu  ^anifa,  94-102,  106,  121,  127, 

193,  309 
Abu  Hashim,  159,  f. 


Ahu  Hudhayl,  136-139, 159,  248 

Ahu  Sahl,  325 

Abw  Shuja'  al-Ispahani,  351 

Ahu  Sufyan,  22 

Ah2i  Sulayman  of  Damascus,  175 

AbM  Talih,  10 

Ab?^  Talih  al-Makki,  176,  f . 

AbM  'Ubayda,  150 

Ahu  Ya'qwb  ibn  'Abd  al-Mu'min, 

252-255 
Ab?^  Yusuf,  the  Qadi,  96-99 
Abw  Ywsuf  al-Manswr,  252,  255 
Active  Intellect,  236,  250-253,  256, 

265 
'^da,  113 
'Adad,  326 
Adam,  42,  43,  171,  232,  312,   332, 

346 
*Adam,  316 
'Adi  al-Hakkart,  267 
'Adil,  356 
'Adl,  291 
Africa,  59 
Africa,  East,  24,  26 
Africa,  North,  26,  35,  45,  46,  62, 

243 
Ahl  al-ahwa,  122,  299 
Ahl  at-tawAid  wal-'adl,  136 
Ahl  kitab,  24 

AAmad  al-Badawi,  267,  269 
A^mad  al-Malawi,  331 
A^mad  ar-Ril'a'a,  267 
A^mad  ibn  'Abd  Allah  ibn  May- 

m?/n,  44 
AAmad  ibn  Abi  Duwad,  156 


373 


374      IKDEX   OF  NAMES   AND   ARABIC   WORDS 


AAmad  ibn  iTanbal,  79,  103,  110, 
157, 158, 173, 175, 176, 187,  274, 
277, 293 
'^'isha,    wife   of  MuAammad,  10, 

13,21 
*J.'isha,    daughter   of    Ja'far   as- 

.Sadiq,  173 
Ajal,  298,  311 

Al-Ajhuri,  346 
'Ajz,  317,  339 

Al-Akhfal,  89 
'^lam  al-jabarwt,  234 

'Alam  al-malak?/t,  234,  235 
Mlam  al-mulk,  234 

Alam?«t,  49,  169,  224 

Alastu  bi-rabbikum,  171 

Aleppo,  163 

Alexandria,  241 

Algeria,  24,  26,  62 

'Alids,  18,  32-35,  37,  51,  155, 157, 
166,  187 

'All  ibn  AU  Talih,  18-31,  36,  37, 
44,  45,  88,  121,  155,  182,  249, 
259,  275,  297,  307,  313,  314,  346 

' J^lim,  337  ;  cf.  'ulama 

Allah,  127,  161,  331,  327 

Almeria,  260 

Alp  Arslan,  213 

Alphonso  the  Wise,  233 

Al-'Alqami,  346 

A'ma,  340 

'Ama,  340 

'Amal,  294,  296,  313 

Amana,  347 

'Amr  ibn  'Ubayd,  129 

Amina,  mother  of  Muhammad,  351 

Anima  Mundi,  232 

Ansar,  9,  13,  18 

*Aqida,  316 

'Aq^qa,  356 

'Aql,  120,  136,  148,  157,  214,  369, 
273,  293,  308,  316 

Al-'aql  al-fa'  'al ;  see  Active  Intel- 
lect 


Arabs,  8,  14,  17,  24,  40,  44-46,  50, 
51,  60,  67,  68,  74,  124, 125,  127, 
133,  13i,  150,  157,  243,  305 

Arabia,  15,  23,  25,  36,  37,  131 

Arabia,  South,  23,  36,  37,  45,  59 

Arab  'Iraq  ;  see  al-'lraq 

'Arad,  159,  309,  320 

ArAamu-r-ra/^imm,  210 

Aristotelians,  Aristotelianism,  134, 
140,  144,  161-163,  168,  196, 198, 
201.  303,  286 

Aristotle,  134,  138,  140,  144,  161- 
164,  198,  221,  233,  336,  248, 
253,  255,  256,  360,  264 

'  Arsh,  301 

Asal,  253,  254 

Asamm,  340 

Al-asharatu-1-mubashshara,     268, 

297,  314 
Al-Ash'ari,  187-190,  192,  193,  300, 

308,  214,  217,  218,  220,  226,  239, 

230,  293,  308,  319,  341 
Ash'arites,    191,  301,  207-213,  241- 

247,  272,  273,    276,    280,    291, 

393,  338 
'Aahtira,  day  of,  38 
Asl,  107,  109 
As\a.h,  190,    393,  311;     see,    too, 

salah 
Al-asma  al-Ausna,  310,  280,  321, 

341 
Assassins,  27,  49,  53,  59,  169,  170, 

196 ;      see,    too,    Isma'ilians, 

Baiinites,  Ta  'limites 
•Ata  ibn  Yassar,  128 
Athos,  Mount,  178 
Augustine,  133,  215,  216 
Avenpace,  250 ;  see,  too,  Ibn  Bajja 
Averroes,    Averroism,    251 ;     see, 

too,  Ibn  Rushd 
Avicenna,  197 ;  see,  too,  Ibn  Sma 
Awlad  'llwan,  268 
Awwaltyat,  260 
Al-Awza  'i.  98 


INDEX   OF  NAMES   AND   ARABIC   WORDS      375 


'Ayn,  191,  309,  319,  341 
Azali,  291,  300,  309,  323,  343 

Babism,  5 

Badaha,  308 

Badakhshan,  170 

Badan,  141 

Badawite  darwishes,  267 

Al-Baghawi,  81,  207 

Baghdad,  5,  50-53,  56.  Ill,  133, 
159,  163,  166-168, 175, 184, 185, 
190,  194,  195,  307,  313,  317, 
330,  236,  367 

Baghdad,  Pashalik  of,  60 

Bakam,  340 

Balada,  347 

Balkh,  174 

Baqa,  333 

Al-Baqilani,  300,  301,  307 

Barmak,  Barmecides,  50 

Basar,  294,  333 

Bashshar  ibn  Burd,  150 

Basir,  337 

Al-Basra,  18,  33,  35,  83,  150,  159, 

167,  174,  187, 188 
Ba'th,  396,  311,  339 
Batin,  314 
Ba/;iiiites,  43, 196 
Ba^n,  43 
Bay' ,  353 

Al-BayfZawi,  195,  341 
Al-BayjuTi,  315 
Baytu-l-'izza,  335 
Bedawzs,  63 

Berbers,  45,  343,  344,  348,  349 
Al-Beriini,  170,  197 
Beyrout,  84 
Bid'a,  74,  78,  148,  186,    397,   399, 

307 
Bila  kayfa  wala  tashbih,  147,  171, 

191,  308,  394,  344  ;  cf.  kayfa 
Bil-fi'l ;  see  Fi'l 
Bishr  al-^afi,  175,  176 
Bishr  al-Marisi,  155 


Bishr  ibn  al-Mu'tamir,   143,  143, 

151,  153 
Al-Bis<ami,  Ab?^  Yazid,  183,  188, 

335,  368 
Brotherhood  of  as-Sanwsi,  61,  ff. 
Buddhists,  134 
Al-Bukhari,  79,  80,  147, 148 
Burgundy,  83 
Burhan,  359,  360 
Buwayhids,   51,  53,  167,  194,  195, 

197,  308 

Caesarea,  84 

Cairo,  49,  166,  173,  195,  241,  344, 

377 
Camel,  Battle  of  the,  21 
Carthage,  83,  343 
Charles  the  Hammer,  83 
Chinese  Muslims,  59 
Christians,  Christianity,  34,  47,  48, 

135, 130-134,  137,  144,147, 151, 

181, 194 
Companions ;  see  Sahibs 
Code  Napoleon,  114 
Constantino  in  Algeria,  45 
Constantinople,  54, 113 
Crusaders,  49 

Ad-Dajjal,  398,  315 

Daia,  109,  315 

Z>aman,  354 

Damascus,  14,  83,  88,  131,  175,  177 

D«r  al-^arb,  55 

Dar  al-Islam,  55 

Dsxuri,  308 

Darwishes,  5,  61, 179, 183, 183, 303, 

344,  366,  368 
Da'wd  az-Zahivi,  103,  108-110 
'Da'ud  ibn  Nusayr,  174 
Dauphine',  Le,  83 
Dawr,  333 

Dhikrs,  174, 178, 179 
Dhuhwl,  340 
Dh7^-l-faqar,  30 


376       INDEX  OF  NAMES  AND   ARABIC   WORDS 


Dhw-1-Kifl,  346 

DhM-n-Nwn,  176 

Dh?^-n-N^^rayll,  313 

Din,  293,  297,  298,  305,  307 

Diya,  355 

Diyana,  293 

Druses,  27,  48,  59, 170 

Eckart,  the  mystic,  180 
Edict  of  the  Prtetor,  87 
Egypt,  Egyptians,  14,  21,  23,  30, 

45-49,  53,  62,  82,  187,  244,  277, 

287 
Emessa,  163 
Erigena,  Scotus,  182 
Euchites,  178 
Euclid,  134 
Euphrates,  133 

Fakhr  ad-Din  ax-Razi,  241 

Fakhr  ad- Din  ibn  'Asakir,  273 

Fana,  338 

Faqih,  f  uqaha,  73,  85,  270 

Faqirs,  268 

Al-Farabt,  162-164,  165,  167, 169, 

181, 196,  215,  221,  236,  250 
Faragh,  317 
Fard,  73 
F&rida,  354 
Al-Farwq,  313 
Faiana,  347 
Fa^ima,  daughter  of  MuAammad, 

20,  30,  36,  346,  347 
Fa^ima  of  Naysabwr,  173 
Fai!imids,  27,  36,  45,  47,  49,  165- 

167,  169, 173, 184, 197,  224, 241, 

244,  251 
Fatwa,  115,  184,  276,  277 
Fay',  356 
Bil-fi'l,  328 
Fi  ma^all ;  see  ma^all 
Fiqh,  77,  87,  116, 132,  208,  209, 245, 

252,    261,   270,   279,  282;    cf. 

faqih 


Firdawsi,  170 

St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  180 

Frederick  11. ,   the  Hohenstaufen, 

263 
Friday.  35,  51,  235,  298,  313 
Al-Fudalt,  191,  315 
Al-Fu(^ayl  ibn  'lyad,  174, 175 
Fuatat,  83 

Galen,  134 

Ghafala,  340 

Al-Ghani,  327 

Ghanima,  356 

Ghasb,  354 

Al-Ghayb,  139,  281,  314 

Al-Ghazzali,  139,  165, 176, 183, 195, 

199,  207,  215-241,  245-249,  253. 

257,  260-264,  267,  270,  284-286, 

300,  309 
Ghiba,  349 
Ghusl,  352 
Gondeshapwr,  134 
Greek  monks,  178 
Greek    philosophy,    science,   etc., 

133,  138,  140, 144,  159, 161, 162 

JTabib,  175 

ZTadd,  314,  355 

.Skdith,  75,  77,  78,  87,  94, 121,  190, 

209,  261,  270 
l?adith,  320,  322,  328,  332 
i/adith  an-nafs,  273,  336,  350 
ZTafiramawt,  60 
Eaisids,  265 
Ha'il,  60 

^ajar  as-safih,  354 
ITajj,  275,  278,  292,  353 
Al-^ajjaj,  209,  298 
Al-lTakim  Bi'amriUah,  47,  48 
Al-^akam  ibn  abi-l-'^s,  17 
Hal,  160,  176,  227,  310,  319,  322, 

337 
ffal  naf  si,  319 
Balal,  298 


INDEX   OF   NAMES   AND  ARABIC   WORDS      377 


Al-^aUaj,  183-185,  398 
Halley's  comet,  34 
Hamdanids,  162,  165 
Hamilton,  Sir  William,  237 
^anbaUtes,  115, 121,  158,  167, 190, 

191,  200,  207,  208,  212-214,  237, 

273,  274,  278 
^anif,  125 
5anifites,  115 
i/aqiqa,  328,  329 
-Haqq,  356 
Hsxam,  73,  298,  311 
Al-^araman,  56,  213 
Al-J?arith  al-MuAasibi,  175,  177, 

187,  225 
Harran,  133,  134 
Harwn  ar-Rashid,  50,  97,  98,  144, 

153,  155, 175 
JE?asad,  349 

Al-^asan,  20,  27,  28,  35 
Al-lTasan  al-Basri,   128,   129,   130, 

172,  173 
iZasan  ibn  &s-Sahhah,  2^4t 
Hashim,  10, 17, 32,  313,  351 
iZawala,  354 

ITawrf,  249,  296,  306,  311,  349 
^ayah,  332 
^ayy,  337 
Al-5ayy,  211 

iZayy  ibn  Yaqzan,  253,  254 
Hebron,  226 
Hegel,  143,  233 
Herat,  82,  207 
Hesychasts,  178 
Hiba,  354 
Hidandi,  355 
Hidden  Imam,  31,  37,  41,  56, 116; 

cf.  Imam,  Imamites 
Hierotheos,  181 
Al-5"ijaz,  212 
Hippocrates,  134 
Hwd,  346 
irud?/th,    320,    338;     cf.    Aadith, 

muAdath 


ITukm,  292 
Hwlag?^,  49,  53 
^uImI,  228 
Hume,  229,  230 
Al-^usayn,  20,  28 
Huwa-1-Aaqq,  203 

I'ara,  354 

IhadiieB,  5,  26,  54,  115, 117, 126 

Ibn'Abd  al-Wahhab  ;  see  Mu^am, 

mad  ibn  '  Abd  al-Wahhab 
Ibn  Abi  'Awja,  80 
Ibn  al-'Arabi,  316,  322,  323,  328 
Ibn  'Arabi,  241,  261,  264,  271,  277, 

280 
Ibn  ash-Shakaaghani,  185 
Ibn  Bajja,  250,  252,  255,  257 
Ibn  Hani,  170 
Ibn  ifazm,  209-212,  245-248,  261, 

275,  280 
Ibn  Voad,  'Abd  Allah,  25,  26,  116 
Ibn  Karram,  170,  fF. 
Ibn  Khaldwn,  50,  81,  242,  f. 
Ibn  Khallikan,  185 
Ibn  Maja,  81 
Ibn  al-Muqaffa',  150 
Ibn  Rushd,  161,  163,  195,  206,  215, 

236,  248,  252,  255,  256-261,  264- 

286 
IbnSab'in,'Abdal-^aqq,  263,264, 

267,  277 
Ibn  Sina,  163,  171,  197,  221,  228, 

236,  241,  250,  257 
Ibn  Taymiya,  270-278,  283-285 
Ibn  Tufayl,  252-256,  261 
Ibn  Twmart,  207,  245-248,  252,  275 
Ibrahim  ibn  Adham,  174,  268 
Al-i(Zafatu-l-'amm  lil-khoss,  337 
Al-irfafatu-1-bayaniya,  337 
'Idda,  355 
Idris,  346 

Idris  ibn  'Abd  Allah,  35 
Idrisids,  34,  102 
lAa^a,  332 


378      INDEX   OF   NAMES   AND   ARABIC    WOKDS 


lAsan,  293 

Ihtiyaj  ila  maAall,  339 

Ihya,  338 

Ihya  of  al-Ghazzali,  285,  300 

I^ya  al-mawat,  354 

Ijara,  354 

I'jaz,  151 

Al-'/ji,  241,  269 

IjmaS  57,  58,  72,  94,  101, 105,  209, 

292,  328,  351 
IjmaK,  316 
Ikhtilaf,  116 

Ikhtiyar,  192,  310,  339,  345 
Ikhwan  as-safa,  167,  169, 194,  196, 

199 
Iktisab,  280 ;  cf .  kasb 
Iktisabi,  309 
Ila,  355 
Ilhad,  314 
Ilham,  281,  309 
Hjam  al-'awamm'an  'ilm  al-kalam 

of  al-Ghazzali,  260 
'Ilia,  107,  319,  337  ;  cf .  ta'hl 
'Ilm,  201,  294,  332 
'Ilwan,  the  Shaykh,  268 
Imam,  26,  29,  31,  36-38,  41-43,  46, 

54,  57,  142,  155,  165,  167,  188, 

197, 212,  224,  286,  292,  293, 297- 

299,  311,  313,  318,  350 
Imam  al-^aramayn,  212,  213,  217, 

230,  317 
Imamites,  37,  57,  59,  116,  126,  142, 

247 
Iman,  126,  127,  292-296,  311,  312' 

318,  350 
Imata,  338 
Imdadat,  330 
ImtiAan,  148;  cf.  mi/^na 
India,  51,  55,  56,  59,  61 
India,  Emperor  of,  55 
Indian  Mu'tazilism,  286 
Injil,  304 

In  sha'  Allah,  272 
Iqrar,  312,  354 


Irada,  330 

Al-'Iraq,  209 

'Iraq,  Arab,  44 

Ivda,  355 

Irja,  292  ;  cf.  Murji'ites 

'Isa ;  see  Jesus 

Islam,  7,  13-15,  19-27,  37,  40-48, 
52-55,  58,  59,  68,  71-74,  118- 
120,  124,  130,  136,  141,  142, 
149, 151-154,  158-161, 167,  173, 
176, 177,  180-183,  186, 190, 191, 
206,  212-215,  218,  226,  228,  230, 
231,  233,  235,  238-244,  248,  261, 
262,  270,  278,  282-284,  292,  296, 
312 

'Isma,  247,  292,  314,  347 

Isma'il,  41,  42,  43 

Isma'iiians,  42,  44,  57,  59,  169, 170, 
196 

Isnad,  75,  78, 79 

Ispahan,  195 

Istawa,  Istiwa,  186,  294,  301 

IstidlaK,  308 

Isti^'isan,  87,  94,  96 

IstislaA,  87,  100,  101 

Istiia'a,  310 

Istiwa ;  see  Istawa 

I'tazala  'anna,  130 

Ithna  'Ashariya,  38 

I'tibar,  201,  341 

I'tibar  ikhtira'i,  343 

I'tibar  intiza'i,  343 

I'tidal,  221 

I'tikaf,  353 

'Itq,  357 

Itti;iad,  228,  277 

Ja'ala,  354 

Jabarites,  292,  344 

Jabr,  291,  344 

Jacob,  350 

Jadliya,  259 

Ja'far  as-<S^adiq,  42,  173 

Al-Jafr,  249 


INDEX  OF  NAMES  AND  AEABIC   WORDS      379 


Jahannam,  306 

Al-Jahiliya,  the  Barbarism,  cr  the 

Ignorance,  8,  74,  77,  173 
Al-Jahiz,  160,  161 
Jahl,  340 

Jahm  ibn  Satwan,  126, 138, 146, 150 
Jahmites,  294,  299 
Ja'iz,  73,  316,  348 
Jalal  ad-Din  ar-Rwmi,  267 
Jami',  80 
Jarabifb,  62 
Jawhar,  159,  309 
Jawhar  ruhani,  231 
JeriTsalem,  14,  40,  43,  146,  226 
Jesus,  'Isa,  42,  146,  315,  345 
Jews,  24,  47,  68,  70,  133,  134,  144, 

194 
Jibril,  292,  293,  335,  336 
Jihad,  55,  63,  246,  356 
Jinaya,  355 
Jinn,  Jinni,  Jann,  76, 281, 283,  286, 

299,  304,  305,  324 
Jirm,  317,  320 
Jism,  143,  309 
Jizya,  15,  356 
John  of  Damascus,  89,  131,  132, 

137,  146 
Al-Jubba'i,  159, 160, 172, 188-190 
Al-Junayd,  176, 177,  183,  187,  225, 

282 
Jurisprudentes,  85,  86 
Juththa,  334 
Al-Juwayni ;   see  Imam  al--Hara- 

mayn 

Ka'ba,  149,  268,  278 

Kabira,  127,  296,  311,  349 

Kaf  ala,  354 

Kafir,  295,  316,  328,  350 ;  cf.  kufr, 

takfir 
"  Kalila  and  Dimna,"  150 
Kahin,  314 
Kalam,  147,  149,  151, 157,  175,  186, 

188,  193,  200,  206, 208,  214,  216, 


241,  242,  245,276,  278,  286,  294, 

309,  315,  335 
Kalam  Allah,  146 
Kalam  naf  si,  Aadith  fi-n-naf  s,  273, 

336 
Kalimata-sh-shahada,  300 
Al-kalimatan,  30 
Kallima-Uahu  M?isa  taklima,  149 
Kamm  munfasil,  325 
Kamm  muttasU,  325 
Kant,  191,  200,  201 
Al-Karabisi,  187 
Karaha,  339 
Karama,  174,  213,  228, 230, 274, 281, 

282,  313 
Karbala,  28 

Karramites,  170, 191,  195,  291,  292 
Kasb,  179, 192,  292 ;  cf.  iktisab 
Kashf,  120,  172,  179,  215,  269 
Kashshaf  of  az-Zamakhshari,  195 
Kawn,  309  ;  cf.  takwin 
Kawn  'ajiz,  340 
Kawn  jahil,  340 
Kawn  karih,  340 
Kawn  mayyit,  340 
Kawn  murid,  337 
Kawn  qadir,  336 
Al-Kawtbar,  306,  349 
Kayfa,  297 
Kayfiya,  309,  334 
Kempis,  Thomas  a,  177, 180 
Khabar,  308 
Khadija,  347 
Al-Kha(fir,  281,  283 
Khalifa,   Khalifate,   13-28,   32-38, 

45,  47,  51-58,  297,  313 ;  cf .  al- 

Khulafa 
Khalq,  338 
Khanqah,  229,  266 
Kharaj,  15 
Kharas,  340,  341 
Kharijites,  23-27,  32,  40,  44,  57,  59, 

123-126,  131,  172,  212,  292,  294. 

296 


380      INDEX   OF  NAMES   AND  ARABIC    WORDS 


Kha^amt,  331 

Khi^abiya,  259 

Khi^ba,  355 

Khiyana,  347 

Khuffs,  298,  314,  347,  352,  355 

Khur,  355 

Al-Khulaf  a-ar-rashidwn,  22,  87,  99, 

105,  114 
Khurasan,  171,  174,  177 
Khuiba,  56 
Khuzistan,  25,  134 
Kibr,  349 
Kidhb,  347 

Al-Kindi,  155, 161,  187 
Kitaba,  357 
Kitman,  347 
Kubra  of  as-Sanwsi,  316 
Al-Kwfa,  18,  23,  28,  83 
Kufr,  157,  296,  311,  332,  349 ;  cf. 

takfir,  kafir 

Labid,  149 

Laf2,  147,  335 

Laqab,  347 

Laqi^,  354 

La  shay',  328 

Al-law^  al-ma^f  M^,  335 

Laylatu-1-qadr,  335 

Lebanon,  48 

Leibnitz,  192,  200,  203 

Li 'an,  355 

Logos,  146-148, 151 

Lucretius,  200 

Luq^a,  354 

Lu«f,  292 

Ma'bad  al-JuAani,  128 

Al-Madina,  7,  8,  18,  35,  56,  67,  69- 
71,  72,  82,  87,  88,  99,  101,  102, 
165,  213,  216,  226,  278,  284,  346 

Madrasa,  229 

Ma'd?<m,  159,  314,  319;  cf.  *adam 

MafatiA.  al-ghayb  of  ar-Razi,  241 

Magians,  144 


Al-Maghrib,  243 

Ma/iall,  317,  325 

Mahall  (fi),  137 

Al-Mahdi,  27,  34,  45,  62,  114,  244- 

249 
Al-Mahdi,  the  'Abbasid  Khalifa, 

35,  134 
Al-Mahdiya,  165,  244 
Mahiya,  309 

MaTimwd  of  Ghazna,  170, 195, 197 
Mahr,  355 
Maimonides,  237 
Maine,  Sir  Henry,  65,  85, 114 
Majazi,  329 
Majwj,  315 
Makhl?/qat,  324 
Makrwh,  73,   347 
Malay  Archipelago,  62 
Malik  ibn   Anas,   35,  78,   99-103, 

106,  147,  186,  245,  346 
Malikites,  115 
Ma'mar  ibn  'Abbad,  143 
Mamlwks,  53,  54,  275 
Al-Ma'm?m,  50,  110,  140, 144,  154- 

159, 162,  166,  277 
Mandr^b,  73,  347 
Manichaeans,  133,  134 
Mansel,  H.  L.,  237 
Al-Manswr,  'Abbasid  Kh.,  33,  34, 

50,  134,  153,  154 
Maqama,  176 
Al-Maqasid,  346 
Maqbwlrtt,  259 
Mar'an,  314 
Ma'rifa,  201,  350 
Mariya  the  Copt,  347 
Ma'ri^f  of  al-Karkh,  175 
Marwan  II.,  32 
Marwan  ibn  al--Hakam,  17 
MasabiA  as-sunna  of  al-Baghawi, 

81 
Mas^,  298,  314 
Mashhwrat,  259 
Mashya,  294 


INDEX   OF   NAMES   AND   ARABIC    WORDS      381 


MaslaAa,  101 

Masyaf ,  49 

Al-Mataridi,  187,  193,  207,  308 

Mataridites,  200,  207,  337,  838 

Matn,  75,  78 

Maw«qif  of  al  '/ji,  241 

Mawjwb,  347;  cf.  wajib 

Mawj?«d,  159,  191,  314,  319;  cf. 
wuj  ltd 

Mawlawite  darwishes,  267 

Mawqif ,  296,  349 

Mawsil,  267 

Mawt,  340 

Maymwn,  40 

MazuMnat,  259 

Mecca,  9,  17,  23,  25,  32,  46,  56,  62, 
68,  174,  184,  213,  217,  226,  265, 
285,  296,  346 

Merv,  217 

Mesnevi,  The,  267 

Mesopotamia,  23,  44,  82,  131, 187 

Mi/ma,  156,  157 

Minister  of  Justice,  114 

Mi'raj,  298,  312 

Mongols,  49,  52,  53,  169 

Monophy  sites,  181 

Morocco,  35,  62 

Moses,  42,  149,  192,  295,  296,  304, 
386,  345 
-V  Mu'awiya,  21-23,  28,  88 

MubaA,  73,  348 

Mubtadi',  307;  cf.  bid'a 

Mufti,  115;  cf.  fatwa 

Muhajirs,  8,  13,  20 

MuAammad,  the  Prophet,  7-13, 16- 
22,  28,  30,  35,  37,  42-45,  56,  57, 
58,  67-75,  83,  86-89,  95,  104- 
106,  112,  120-133,  140-150,  155, 
160,  161, 164, 165, 171, 172, 175- 
180,188,  210,  227-231,  243,  245, 
249,  253,  254,  263,  270,  275-278, 
284,  285,  292-294,  298,  305,  308, 
312,  335,  336,  345,  346, 349,  350, 
351 


MuAammad  IL,  Ottoman  Sultan, 

113 
Muhammad    al-'AUaf;     see    Abw 

Hudhayl 
Muhammad  al-Muntazar,  187 
MuAammad  an-Naqshbandi,  267 
MuAammad  ibn  'Abd  al-Wahhab, 

60,283 
Muhammad  ibn  Abi  Bakr,  18 
MuAammad  ibn  al-i/anafiya,   29, 

31 
Muhammad  ibn   al-J9asan,  38,  96, 

102 
Muhammad    ibn    'AK    as-Sanwsi; 

see  as-Sanwsi 
MuAammad  ibn  Isma'il,  42,  43,  45 
MuAarram,  347 
Al-Mu^asibi ;  see  Al-^arith 
MuAdath,  309 ;  cf.  ^adith,  hnduth 
MuAdith,  309,  321 
MuAsan,  355 
MuAyi  ad-D»n  ibn  '  Arabi ;  see  Ibn 

'Arabi 
Al-Mu'izz,  Fafimid  Khalifa,  170 
Mujassim,    191,    291;     cf.     jismj 

tajsim 
Mwjid,  325 

Mu'jiza,  141, 151,  313,  345 
Mujtahid,  38,  116,  275,  287,  315 
Mujtahidi^n  bU-fatwa,  113 
Mujtahidwn  fi-1-madhahib,  113 
Mujtahidwn  muflaq,  112 
Mukallaf,  280,   317,  318,  321,  323, 

342,  345 ;  cf.  taklif 
Mukashafa,  227 
Mukhabara,  354 
Mukhalafa  lil-Tiawadith,  205,  210, 

232,  280,  324 
Mukhassis,  325 
Mumathala,  338 
Mu'min,  126,  130,  350 
Mumkinat,  330 
Munkar,  296,  298,  305,  311 
Munazzah,  824 


382      INDEX   OF   NAMES   AND    ARABIC    WORDS 


Muntazar,  313 ;  see,  too,  MuAam- 

mad  al-Munta^ar 
MuqaUad,  316,  350 ;  cf.  taqlid 
Al-Muqanna',  30 
Munqidh  min  a.d-dalal  of  al-Ghaz- 

zali,  216,  235,  239 
Muqarrab,  306, 

Al-Muqtadir,  'AbbasidKh.,  184 
Murabi^s,  246,  251 
Murji'ites,  122-127,  129,  131,  132, 

171,  193,  214,  292 
Murtadd,  24,  297 
M^<sa,  see  Moses 
Muaa  al-Qazam,  43 
Musaqat,  354 
Musallamat,  259 
Musannaf,  79 
Musaylima,  150 

Mushabbih,  191  ;  cf.  bila  kayfa 
Mushahada,  327 
Mushrik,    284,    299;     cf.    shirk, 

Bhar^k 
Muslim,  80 
Musnad,  79,  110 
Al-Musiafa,  300 
Musta^abb,  73 
MustaAil,  316 

Mustansir,  Fafiraid  Kh.,  170 
Mutakallims,    147,    186,     193-196, 

215,  231,  262,  276,  337 
Al-Mu'tasim,  'Abbasid  Kh.,  157, 

158,  162,  163 
Mutaqabilai,  330 
Al-Mutawakkil,     'Abbasid     Kh., 

157,  162 
Mutawatir,  308 
Mu'tazihtes,  37,  57,  120,  130,  135- 

138,  140,  143-146,  151-159,  166, 

168,  171,  172, 175, 176,  184-196, 

200,  207,  208,  211-214,  220-226, 

241,  248,  291-294,  298,  299,  311, 

336,  337,  343,  344. 
Muwa/iAids,  179,  207,  246-257,  261- 

265,  284,  296,  307 


Muwa^ia'  of  Malik  ibn  Anas,  78, 

82,  101,  102 
Al-Muzdar,  151 
Mzab  in  Algeria,  26,  59 

Nabateans,  44 

Nabi,  263,  312,  345 

Nabidh,  314 

Nadhr,  356 

Nafaqa,  355 

Naf  isa.  The  Lady,  173 

Nafs,  234,  272,  334 

Nahawand,  14,  133 

Najasat,  352 

Najd,  60 

Najjarites,  292 

Nakir,  296,  298,  305,  311 

Naqib,  268 

Naql,  120, 148, 157, 214, 269, 297, 310 

Naqshbandite  darwishes,  267 

Narbonne,  83 

An-Nasafi,  193,  207,  277,  308 

An-Nasa'i,  81, 152 

Nasir  ibn  Khusraw,  170 

An-Nosir,  Mamh^k  Sulian,  277 

An-Nasr  al-Manbiji,  277 

Nass,  29,  95,  292 

Naysabwr,  217,  229 

Nazr,  208 

An-Naz^am,  140,  143,  152 

Neo-Platonism,  163,  164,  168, 180, 

181,   196,  232,   235.   236,    253, 

255,  264,  272 
Nika/i,  354 
Nisba,  337 

Ni^am  al-Mulk,  213,  217.  218 
Nijamite  Academy,  213,  217 
Noah,  or  Nuh,  42,  43,  345 
Nusayrites,  59 

Old  Man  of  the  Mountain,  Shaykh 

al-jabal,  49 
Ottoman  Saltan,  10.  56,  58,  59 
Ottoman  Turks,  36,  52,  53,  54,  60 


i 


Date  Due 


c|ADl]ITy 


fACULTt 


"•mmmmm 


